Noncash benefits 'bureaucratic insanity'

DW: What kind of benefits are we talking about here - what would change for refugees with this change of the law?

Marei Pelzer: The plan is to introduce noncash benefits in areas where really only money payments make sense. This is not about living quarters or food - these are areas where benefits have been granted in kind for a long time. It's about personal needs like communication, bus tickets or even contraception.

It would be bureaucratic insanity if the state attempted to buy these things and hand them out to asylum applicants. Every individual has different needs, of course. One person might primarily buy cigarettes or tobacco, because he's a smoker, another one might have no need for that. The suggestion to organize personal-needs items on a noncash-benefit basis is simply out of touch with reality.

Would noncash benefits be handed out in addition to money or would they replace monetary payments entirely?

The plan is for refugees to only receive noncash benefits while they're in the initial aid facilities. This has been the case anyway with food and accommodation, but now it's supposed to apply to personal needs, too. This can be for as long as six months and with refugees from the West Balkans even for the entirety of their stay before they are deported [since refugees from this area are usually not granted asylum in Germany, the ed.].

So the refugees would have no money to make personal purchases for at least half a year. This makes the situation a lot worse compared to what we previously had.

Who would decide what kind of things asylum applicants would receive, since personal needs vary from person to person?

Authorities will probably deal with this very pragmatically because of the large number of refugees. I could imagine that they'll hand out vouchers, since the distribution of individual items could not be organized at all. Making shopping lists and organizing a shopping duty roster is not something that the authorities could organize.

But the problem with vouchers is that a cooperation will usually only be arranged with certain supermarkets. This means that the refugees cannot pick up their items where they are the cheapest, but have to go to the predetermined store. That lowers the value of the vouchers.

What is Pro Asyl's position on noncash benefits?

We reject this system. We thought it was a great step forward when they were largely abandoned in a reform of the Asylum-Seekers' Benefits Act last year. Reintroducing them now is anachronistic and doesn't make sense at all.

It's really only a deterrence-measure. And the Federal Constitutional Court [Germany's highest court, the ed.] said in its 2012 ruling on the Asylum-Seekers' Benefits Act that social benefits must not be misused as deterrence.

But that's basically what politicians want to do now: to make living conditions worse so that refugees are deterred from coming to Germany. We believe this cannot be brought in line with human dignity or the German constitution and we don't believe it'll work either.

According to a survey by German public broadcaster ZDF, 82 percent of Germans are in favor of noncash benefits for refugees as opposed to cash payments. Why do you think that is?

That's because politicians, especially ministers of the interior, have turned public opinion against refugees for years. They have led discussions about abuse of social benefits that are entirely unfounded, but apparently reach the public nonetheless. They work with simplified reasoning and stoke resentment and prejudice.

Supposedly, these people are worried about refugees taking advantage of the asylum system and of the German welfare state. What they are not saying, however, is that the benefits that refugees receive are at subsistence levels, just like what unemployed Germans are paid. We're not talking luxuries here.

Noncash benefits will simply lead to more bureaucracy and higher costs in the end. And all that only because our interior minister wants to chalk up a personal win and distinguish himself as a hardliner.

Marei Pelzer is the legal policy adviser at the German refugee support organization Pro Asyl.