Brandenburg’s Interior Minister Michael Stübgen (CDU) has criticized the payment of citizen’s allowance to Ukrainian refugees. “It doesn’t make sense to talk about supporting Ukraine as best as possible and, in the same breath, supporting deserting Ukrainians,” he told the editorial network Germany (RND/Sunday). “Regardless of that, the decision to immediately pay citizens’ allowance to refugees from Ukraine has proven to be a fundamental mistake.” The employment rate of Ukrainians is vanishingly low because citizens’ allowance has become “a brake on people taking up work.” “The federal government must urgently consider changing course here,” said Stübgen. He is chairman of the Conference of Interior Ministers (IMK), which meets in Potsdam from Wednesday to Friday.
Stübgen thus supported a demand from Bavaria’s Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann (CSU), who also wants to speak about the topic at the IMK. Herrmann had already said in May: “The least we can do is not pay such a citizen’s allowance, and especially not to men who are actually obliged to do military service in their Ukrainian homeland.” The men are needed for the defense of Ukraine.