Germany has promised to boost national security after recent terror attacks but rowed back on controversial measures, including a proposal to ban the burka in public.
Federal interior minister Thomas de Maizière has promised expedited deportations of criminal non-nationals and new laws to strip citizenship from Germans who fight with so-called Islamic State.
But Mr de Maizière distanced himself from proposals to water down doctor-patient confidentiality and to ban burkas, as proposed by the ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in a position paper, saying it would be unconstitutional to forbid women wearing a full veil.
After a series of violent attacks last month, and with Germany entering its election cycle, chancellor Angela Merkel and her CDU allies have launched a campaign to re-establish their law-and-order credentials with voters. After leaked political proposals caused uproar on Wednesday, however, Dr Merkel’s interior minister rowed back on Thursday quickly, insisting he would make no promises he couldn’t keep.
“No one can guarantee there will be no more attacks, no one can guarantee absolute security,” said Mr de Maizière. “Our task is to define limits.”
Among the new limits, he said, were tighter regulations for deporting criminal non-nationals and dangerous persons. Germany’s criminal police would in future check all asylum applications for criminal links while asylum authorities would cut the time failed applicants can remain in the country – a window of opportunity exploited by the suicide bomber from Ansbach.
On several controversial points, however, Mr de Maizière presented a more moderate line, saying he would limit himself to measures he considered politically feasible – in particular given vocal opposition to almost all proposals from the CDU’s Social Democrat coalition partners.
“I don’t demand things I cannot imagine getting through,” he said. “You cannot forbid everything you reject and I reject the wearing of the burka.”
Mr de Maizière promised to criminalise propagandising for foreign terrorist organisations. A new law was necessary, he said, to strip people with dual citizenship of their German passport if they joined Islamist extremist groups.
Contrary to a CDU position paper to be presented next week, the minister said he did not favour a general abolition of dual citizenship. Nor would the interior minister intervene to change doctor-patient confidentiality rules in the case of national security. That proposal caused uproar among doctors’ organisations, fearing political interference in doctor-patient relationships. But the interior minister promised continued dialogue with doctors over how to reduce the risk to the wider population from patients in psychotherapy, as well as new funding for social workers assisting refugees and additional training to spot clues of radicalisation.
“Good integration politics is good security policy,” he said.
