The European Union has decreased its Mediterranean rescue efforts, while Greece and Italy are struggling to deal with displaced people who have already arrived. German cities are demanding permission to take action.
With EU efforts toward political solutions to rescue and distribute refugees effectively at a standstill, representatives from Potsdam, Düsseldorf and elsewhere told a joint press conference that it is their humanitarian duty to upend the current status quo on migration policy.
"We would be prepared to take in more people if we were allowed," Mike Schubert, mayor of Potsdam and a member of the initiative Cities of Safe Harbours, told reporters. "We are currently experiencing a policy of wait and see, but that's the opposite of acting." He went on to remark, "What's the alternative to saving people at sea? To allow people to drown? The number of those who stand at the ready to intercept this catastrophe is growing every day."
With EU efforts toward political solutions to rescue and distribute refugees effectively at a standstill, representatives from Potsdam, Düsseldorf and elsewhere told a joint press conference that it is their humanitarian duty to upend the current status quo on migration policy.
The Cities of Safe Harbours initiative seeks to break that standstill by petitioning for special permissions to immediately accept refugees rescued on the Mediterranean and stranded in Greece, Italy and elsewhere. Cities of Safe Harbours has asked the government to trigger Section 23, Paragraph 1 of Germany's Residence Act, which allows for the immediate distribution of specialty humanitarian residence permits without legislative acrobatics.
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