The facility is expected to begin operations on March 1, News.Az reports, citing TVP World.
The facility is dubbed a ‘Dublin center’ after the EU regulation that specifies a migrant can be returned to the country in which they first filed an asylum claim.
The facility was set up under an agreement between Germany’s federal government and the authorities of the eastern state of Brandenburg, which borders Poland, signed on Monday, the Bild newspaper reported.
“The center will accommodate 150 to 250 people in two buildings,” Brandenburg’s interior minister, Katrin Lange, was quoted by Bild as saying. “Then we will have all Dublin refugees in a single central location. Due to the proximity to the Polish border, they can be returned there quickly.”
Bild cited an anonymous judge saying that although Poland accepts most returnees, many then make their way back to Germany. To prevent this, the federal interior minister, Nancy Faeser, wants ‘Dublin’ cases to have their benefits restricted.
Rather than the welfare payments usually made to asylum seekers, such migrants will receive only “bed, bread and soap” under new rules, Faeser said. She also called for speedy removal of migrants under the Dublin regulation.
