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Germany’s Finance Minister Christian Lindner has proposed reevaluating the legal status of Ukrainian refugees, German magazine Wirtschaftswoche reported on Oct. 23.
In an interview with the outlet, Lindner suggested lowering welfare payments and increasing employment among those receiving benefits.
Lindner said that Ukrainians should not qualify by default for the higher Burgergeld payments, which are typically for residents and cover social and economic needs, even for those not employed.
Instead, he recommended offering benefits more aligned with asylum seekers, combined with labor market integration tools.
“They should not automatically receive Burgergeld,” Lindner said.
The topic of benefits for Ukrainian refugees has recently caused debate among German officials.
More than 200,000 Ukrainian refugees have already found jobs in Germany through the government’s Jobturbo program, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said during a conference with citizens and voters of his Social Democratic Party (SPD) in Teltow.
Germany has taken in more than 1 million refugees from Ukraine since February 2022. Berlin has spent more than 20 billion euros ($21.4 billion) on accommodation and integration of refugees, according to Bloomberg.
According to Eurostat, over 4.2 million Ukrainian refugees are currently registered for temporary protection to legally access housing, find work, and receive social benefits in EU states. The EU activated the Temporary Protection Directive in March 2022 after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began.
Ukraine’s population dropped by 10 million after Russia’s 2014 invasion, UN says
Ukraine’s birth rate is the lowest in Europe and the number of refugees has surged to 6.7 million, with the full-scale invasion of 2022 exacerbating an already dire decline, according to the U.N. Population Fund.
