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Reuters
All the Syrian men on the bus have been recognised as refugees
A Bavarian mayor angry about Germany’s asylum policy has sent a busload of Syrian migrants to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s office in Berlin.
Peter Dreier, mayor of the district of Landshut, said he wanted to “send a signal” that Germany’s asylum policies could not continue as before.
The bus arrived in Berlin on Thursday evening. All those on board volunteered to make the journey, the council said.
Germany took in 1.1 million asylum seekers in 2015.
Mr Dreier said he had informed Mrs Merkel of his bus plan in a phone call in October.
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German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said in a statement that in Germany the state and local authorities were responsible for accommodating refugees, and they were provided with comprehensive support from the federal government.
“Berlin [meaning the state authority there] has agreed in this case to provide the refugees with the first night’s accommodation,” he said.
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EPA
A crowd of reporters and some protesters were outside the federal chancellery to greet the refugees
However, an hour and a half after the bus arrived at a parking spot outside Mrs Merkel’s official residence, only one person had got off the bus, according to reporters for the Tagesspiegel newspaper at the scene. Food had been taken on board the bus, they said.
Mrs Merkel’s welcoming approach to Syrians fleeing the war in their homeland made her a heroine to many migrants making the arduous journey through Europe.
The men on the bus have refugee status, which means they are free to live anywhere in Germany. Finding accommodation is hard in Landshut, the local council said.
Mr Dreier, who waved the bus off from Landshut, followed in a car after a meeting and was surrounded by media on arrival outside the chancellery.
“An end to the wave of refugees in not in sight, the country’s capacity of accommodation fit for human habitation is rapidly running low and I see no sign that new dwellings for immigrants are being built,” Mr Dreier, who represents the Independent Voters grouping, said in a statement.
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Reuters
Mr Dreier spoke to journalists outside Chancellor Merkel’s office as the busload of migrants arrived
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AP
The bus containing 31 male Syrian refugees set off for Berlin on Thursday morning
Mrs Merkel had said she understood his concerns when they spoke by phone, and said he should give her office one day’s notice of the bus’s departure, the council said.
Ellmar Stoettner, a spokesman for the local council who travelled on the bus with the refugees, told the BBC that they would be offered a return journey to Bavaria if they so wished.
They were all happy to be on board and had made the journey having been fully informed of their options, he said. Fifty-one refugees had originally expressed interest in the trip.
The Landshut district has to house 2,100 asylum seekers, and that number continues to grow, he said. The population of the district – largely small market towns and villages – is 152,000.
The men making the journey to Berlin are so-called Fehlbeleger – people with recognised refugee status who continue to occupy asylum seeker accommodation as they cannot find a place of their own to rent.
Mr Stoettner told the BBC that accommodation in his area was so in demand that the rental market had become a bit like London – and landlords could choose the tenants they prefer.
Of the 2,100 asylum seekers in Landshut district, 450 are in this situation, he said.
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