SVP wants to activate emergency clause

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The SVP unpacks: on Tuesday, the party will present a sizeable package of advances to both chambers of parliament. Group leader Thomas Aeschi (44) announced this to SonntagsBlick.

The demand: No more asylum procedures in Switzerland! The SVP wants to send asylum seekers whose applications are being processed to Rwanda. The party also demands a closed transit zone along the Swiss border. In addition, rejected asylum seekers must be deported immediately.

In fact, Aeschi refers to the emergency clause in the asylum law. This makes it possible to introduce extraordinary measures in exceptional situations, including, in particular, systematic border checks. “Switzerland must now activate this emergency clause,” says Aeschi. “We have to secure the borders. Otherwise the situation will get out of hand.” Aeschi wants to advise the SVP on the progress in the summer session. “With the massive influx of illegal immigrants and asylum seekers, the situation is extremely dangerous!”

No new requirements

As early as 2015, the SVP called for the emergency clause to be activated. At that time, the refugee crisis had only just begun. But the attempt fails. And today?

At the center of the storm are everyday houses in the canton of Aargau: dirty facades, gabled roofs, brown shutters. The SVP chose her as a symbol of everything that is currently going wrong in Swiss asylum policy.

Last Monday it was announced that 49 tenants of three homes in the municipality of Windisch have received a notice of termination. Minor asylum seekers must move to their apartments on Mülligerstrasse and Zelglistrasse as soon as possible.

An insult to the SVP – and a steep template: “Swiss people give up their apartment to house asylum seekers, that’s the worst decision you can make,” said party leader Marco Chiesa (48) in the crosshairs. Party member and government councilor Jean-Pierre Gallati (56), responsible for the refugee system in the canton of Aargau, was blamed as a pawn sacrifice.

Greed for profit and not asylum madness

Gallati has since apologized to the tenants for the insensitive approach. But it also became clear how this whole mess could arise: the building owner had been planning to demolish the building for some time, so the request from the canton for temporary asylum use came in handy.

Is the SVP lost in the Windisch case? In any case, CS real estate expert Fredy Hasenmaile speaks of a housing shortage instead of an asylum crisis: “The refugees are not the cause of the housing problem.” Anyone who says otherwise puts the reins on the horse from behind. “The real problem is the poor framework conditions for housing.”

However, SVP boss Chiesa does not approve of the new facts. On the contrary. On Sunday he even doubled down: “The scandal is that Swiss tenants are evicted to make way for asylum migrants – and the canton of Aargau is helping.” With the term “interim use” you just want to talk nicely about this scandal.

Unfortunately, Windisch is just the beginning, Chiesa continues. It is irrelevant that a private investor wants to gild his newly acquired property. “These are private decisions, which unfortunately can also be difficult for tenants.”

The numbers are increasing

In fact, the pressure on Switzerland is increasing. Since the beginning of this year, the cantons have received about 800 asylum and protection seekers per week from the federal government. Last year there were about 500 in the same period. For 2023, the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) expects 27,000 asylum seekers in the most likely scenario, but up to 40,000 are also possible.

The result: pressure on the cantons is increasing, according to a study by SonntagsBlick.

The biggest problem is the housing shortage, says the Canton of Geneva. “Suitable properties are rare,” says Aargau. The same picture in Basel-Stadt, where a modular residential area with 140 rooms is currently being built from scratch. “Even in acute housing bottlenecks, there are several security systems,” says the canton.

Soon modules will also be built in Zug that can accommodate up to 230 people. Various cantons accommodate asylum seekers in hotels. St. Gallen says: “Asylum-seeker reception structures are very busy at the moment.”

Accommodation in the bunker

The canton of Aargau has already commissioned an underground installation in Muri and will open a new one in Birmenstorf on Monday. The next underground accommodations will probably follow shortly in Aarau and Lenzburg. The canton states: “Indeed, we also have to deal with the question of what happens if this emergency shelter is full and new regular shelter is not available in time.” The canton of Basel-Landschaft says: “The situation will remain tense in the coming months.”

It really doesn’t get any easier. In any case, the SEM is in the red: the federal government expects a significant increase in asylum seekers in the coming months – and is already working with scenarios that anticipate the construction of tent villages.

That increases the pressure on Minister of Asylum Elisabeth Baume-Schneider (59). SVP-Aeschi took aim at her directly on Tuesday: he was “very disappointed and shocked” by her “anti-Swiss policy,” he wrote on Twitter.

It should not have been the last attack on the SP federal councilor.

Source:Blick