Will Germany’s ‘Rwanda-style’ migrant plan ever materialise?

Germany’s chancellor is cracking down on asylum seekers – but he is not doing so willingly. The country’s federal government is weighing up a system – similar to the UK’s mooted ‘Rwanda plan’ – for asylum applications to be processed abroad. But Olaf Scholz, who was essentially cornered into the announcement following a marathon session with regional leaders from Germany’s 16 state governments, is sceptical.

‘There are…a whole series of legal questions,’ Scholz said after emerging in the early hours of Tuesday morning from an acrimonious meeting with state leaders. The plan, a 17-page agreement, is an attempt to counter the rise of far-right parties like Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). If put into place, it will mark a further shift away from Merkel’s ‘Wir schaffen das’ (‘We can do this’) declaration in 2015, when Europe was gripped by a huge influx of migrants. But many Germans are sceptical as to whether its measures – including the proposal to use ‘third countries’ to house those waiting to hear the status of their asylum applications – will ever see the light of day.

The ‘legal questions’ Scholz mentions are a big obstacle: as the UK has found with trying to put in place its ‘Rwanda plan’, such schemes can easily risk falling foul of the courts.