Germany's future chancellor Friedrich Merz said that the new federal government will strive to limit the number of asylum seekers to no more than 100,000 per year, DPA reported, BTA reported.
"The workload on our cities, towns, schools, hospitals and infrastructure has reached a critical point," Merz said in an interview with AERD television.
He confirmed his plans to suspend family reunification and launch a broad deportation campaign, as outlined in the coalition agreement between his conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU/CSU) and the Social Democratic Party (SPD). Merz also pledged to introduce mechanisms to return migrants at the borders and added that coordination with neighboring countries on this issue is already underway.
In 2024, Germany registered almost 230,000 asylum applications, which is about 100,000 fewer than the previous year. Merz stressed that the Federal Republic has the capacity to process no more than 100,000 asylum applications per year.