BERLIN, May 17 (Xinhua) -- German interior minister and Christian Social Union (CSU) leader Horst Seehofer told delegates on Thursday that he was open to the possibility of a parliamentary inquiry into a recent scandal which has engulfed the federal office for migration and refugees (Bamf).
"The launch of a parliamentary inquiry does not pose a threat to me," Seehofer said during a speech in the federal parliament (Bundestag). The interior minister hereby responded to harsh criticism by the Free Democratic Party (FDP) and Greens (Gruene) opposition factions that his department had displayed gross incompetence and withheld information from the public in the aftermath of the affair.
According to the reports first published in April, a senior Bamf employee in Bremen incorrectly granted asylum status in around 2,000 cases of applications between 2013 and 2017. The Bremen State Prosecution Office confirmed that it was investigating the Bamf employee in question, as well as three attorneys and one translator who are believed to have cooperated systematically in subverting the course of justice.
The suspects face criminal charges of corruption and organized incitement of filing fraudulent asylum applications. A spokesperson for the interior ministry emphasized, however, that the accusations only concerned an "isolated case".
Speaking to delegates on Thursday, Seehofer reiterated that he remained convinced that the Nuremberg-based Bamf did its job well as a whole and consequently did not deserve to be placed under collective suspicion. "Good work is done there today for our country in a very important issue-area," he said.
The CSU leader also stressed that irregularities were detected in Bremen, and resulting investigations begun, well before he assumed his own post as interior minister. Seehofer noted in this context that one of his first acts in office was to launch a systematic independent assessment by the federal audit office and order the Bamf to review each asylum application filed and processed at its regional branch in Bremen.
Nevertheless, the interior minister urged state governments once again on Thursday to support his plans for the creation of a new system of so-called "anchor centers" where refugees would be held centrally after arriving in Germany until a decision had been reached on their residency status. So far, German regions have failed to embrace a pilot project, leading to accusations that asylum policy proposals advanced by Seehofer were not well-developed in spite of his tough rhetoric on the subject.
Seehofer argued that the "anchor centers" where better thought of as "manageable facilities" instead of refugee "camps". He warned that a more centralized asylum system was urgently needed in Germany to prevent Berlin from shouldering a disproportionate burden in the European accommodation of asylum seekers during future migratory movements.
