By Tass
Copyright tass
BERLIN, September 20. /TASS/. Markus Soder, Chairman of the Christian Social Union (CSU) and Prime Minister of the Federal State of Bavaria, believes that Ukrainians who are fit for military service should return to their homeland from Germany.
“The basic principle is that those who integrate and work are welcome here. Those who don’t want to work can’t stay. We also need a zero tolerance strategy for criminals,” Soder said in an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper. He called for deportation to Afghanistan on a permanent basis.
“Similarly, people should return to their homeland when the situation there has changed, as it was after the Balkan wars. This applies to both Syrians involved in the reconstruction of the country and men from Ukraine who are fit for military service,” Soder stressed.
The CSU leader called for social spending cuts. “Anyone who refuses to work, even if they have the right to do so, should be deprived of their income to the maximum extent possible,” he stated. Soder noted that the cost of the civilian allowance Burgergeld alone, amounting to 50 billion euros, is comparable to a regular defense budget. “It is also striking that half of the recipients do not have a German passport,” he said.
Currently, there are more than 1.25 million Ukrainians in Germany. About 700,000 of them, according to the German authorities, receive civil benefits, which they receive in contrast to the asylum seekers from other countries, and about 480,000 of them are of working age.
On August 3, the Bild newspaper reported that Germany spent a record 46.9 billion euros on civil benefits in 2024. Of these, 22.2 billion euros were received by persons without German passports. Ukrainians were mainly among the foreign recipients of the Burgergeld. In 2024, they were paid about 6.3 billion euros.
