This is a fivefold of immigrants, compared to September of last year. The total number of refugees for this year has already reached 520.000 and the UN predicts it will be a total of around 700.000 by the end of the year.
All of them want to go to Western Europe and most of them prefer to start a new life in Germany. The question is: why Germany? It’s all because of how the European asylum procedure works.
Any refugee should ask asylum in the country where he or she enters Europe. That country will treat the request and if it is accepted, this country will provide for him.
However: the criteria that are used to accept or deny a refugee differ from country to country.
During the asylum procedure it doesn’t really make a difference which European country it is: they all have to provide the 3 B’s: bed, bath and bread. All will be housed in a shelter, receive food and have access to medical facilities.
The difference becomes even more important after the application is approved. Once accepted as a refugee, the immigrant has the same rights as the citizens of that country or even more. This includes:
- Free access to medical facilities
- Free access to schools for their children
- The right to work in that country
- They receive child support
AND: as long as they are out of work, they receive an unemployment allowance from the government.
And here lies the biggest difference per region. Some countries like Belgium give up to 1200 € allowance per month per person, unlimited in time. Add to that the amount of 300 € of child allowance per child, which makes a nice monthly income.
In addition to that, they have access to cheap housing or they receive another allowance for renting a house.
Compared to southern European countries like Spain, the allowance is only 400 € and limited to 6 months. Not to mention the lack of support in the eastern European countries.
All this information is well known amongst the people, as they share their experiences on social networks: “I want to go to Belgium“, said a refugee called Ahmet on Belgium television, “because the government will give me a house and my children can go to school there”.
Another refugee called Hussein explained why he didn’t want to be registered in Hungary: “because the standard of life was not high enough”.
Sometimes their information is based on half-truth. Saïd, a young man from the Central African Republic, wanted to get to Germany, because “they need a lot of people there to rebuild the country after the war”.
Fact is that Germany announced they needed immigration because the country is in need of skilled workers. Germany is also struggling with a descending number of births and more people are needed to work and contribute to the social security system. This announcement however resulted in an overwhelming number of refugees wanting to go to Germany because chances of being accepted are the highest there.
Question remains however, of all people entering Europe, how many will be granted asylum and what will happen with those that are denied?
