Stuttgart (dpa / lsw) – According to Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann, the federal government must make adjustments to the refugee costs and give the municipalities more support than before. “I’m already predicting that the federal government’s commitments will prove to be insufficient,” said the head of government on Thursday in the Stuttgart state parliament. “He can’t stop there and has to take on more responsibility.”
The latest financial commitments from the federal government do not do justice to the difficult situation. “The state and municipalities are left with a large part of the increased costs,” criticized the Green politician on Thursday in the Stuttgart state parliament. Together, the state, municipalities and committed people accommodated around 137,000 people seeking protection from Ukraine, and around 22,000 more refugees came from other countries. “Many municipalities are on the edge of what they can afford,” said Kretschmann in a government statement on the country’s crisis policy.
The state and local authorities would have to bear more than three quarters of the total costs of around 2.3 billion euros for the current year and the coming year for the people from Ukraine alone, he said. The federal government has also paid up to 700 million euros annually for refugees from other countries in recent years. “From 2023 it should only be around 160 million euros per year,” Kretschmann summed up. “And that’s despite the fact that the number of refugees is increasing noticeably.”
After the meeting of the federal and state governments at the beginning of the month, the cities and municipalities in particular had massively criticized the resolutions. District President Jürgen Walter complained that the federal states had been satisfied with financial commitments from the federal government that were miles away from what they themselves considered necessary.
