On Wednesday, the Federal Council and the head of the Department of Justice and Police, Beat Jans, announced the appointment of Vincenzo Mascioli as head of the State Secretariat for Migration. The choice of this 54-year-old Zurich civil servant was immediately criticized by the German-speaking right, because he would have left-wing sensibilities.
The PLR reacted by assigning it in a press release “specifications”, where the idea “of implementing solutions with third countries” appears prominently, following the example of Italy and from his camps in Albania.
“If rejected asylum seekers still cannot be returned to their country of origin,” writes the PLR; solutions must be implemented with third countries. Italy recently opened a center for asylum seekers in Albania, showing that cooperation with other countries works perfectly.
The PLR adds: “The assertions of Federal Councilor Beat Jans that such solutions are not feasible are thus clearly contradicted. The PLR will again present this request to Parliament. Because it is unacceptable that rejected asylum seekers, who do not need the protection of Switzerland, occupy the accommodation places of refugees who are entitled to protection.”
In total, 4,500 foreign people currently living in Switzerland should actually leave the country. The PLR press release was welcomed by the UDC, in particular by the head of asylum policy and national councilor Pascal Schmid (UDC/TH), quoted by “20 Minuten”: “The UDC has been making these requests since years. It is very encouraging that the PLR has finally understood that we can no longer expect our population to continue as if nothing had happened.”
If the UDC and the PLR are now on the same line on this type of project, they still lack the support of the Center in the bourgeois camp, which is not won, in particular for reasons of feasibility and costs, according to the Aargau State Councilor, Marianne Binder-Keller (C/AG), also quoted by “20 Minuten”. The Italians themselves financed the center for asylum seekers in Albania, which has already cost them some 850 million euros.
For national councilor Céline Widmer (PS/ZH), there is no proof that Italy’s “Albania Project” is effective for the moment. According to her, Switzerland already has one of the “harshest” asylum systems in Europe and refugee movements are based on war and not on a supposedly “lax” asylum system.
