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153
GERMANY
The conclusion of readmission agreements;
In the context of readmission, the application of sanctions against a country of origin, which
fails to cooperate, by withholding development aid;
The greater use of small charter flights and direct flights;
Group visits to the embassies of the countries of origin with rejectees to obtain travel documents
collectively;
Improvement of cooperation between the Federal Office for the Recognition of Foreign Refugees
and the Federal Länder;
Establishment of departure centres; 9
Improvement of cooperation with German diplomatic representatives abroad.
According to the Ministry of Interior, these recommendations have been adopted and are being
implemented successively in the Länder.
Experiences at the Länder Level
The experiences of individual Bundesländer have shown that cooperation among the Bundesländer
has proven to be successful and should be further strengthened. Collective screening
(Sammelvorführungen) by diplomats to determine the nationality of foreigners who have lost or
purposely destroyed their ID documents, has proven to be both cost effective and time efficient.
Secondly, charter flights to e.g. Kosovo have been organized collectively to share costs and to
fill up seats.
Also, the establishment of a central authority to organize passport replacements within the
Bundesland has worked well in the past. For example, centralizing the Passport procedure, and
creating a central Ausländerbehörde, is deemed to be both cost effective and time efficient in
Hessen. Bavaria centralized its passport-obtaining procedures in 1998.
In general, direct involvement of all parties is more effective, i.e. establishing and maintaining
direct contacts to the embassies, and counselling those wishing to return home has proven to be
very helpful.
Problems have arisen with the public health officers who have to issue certificates of travelworthiness
(Flugtauglichkeitgutachten) for deportees. They often feel that it is their duty as a
doctor to include an assessment of the medical conditions in the country of destination, although
that does not fall into their jurisdiction and has been assessed during the trial. This leads to a
conflict of interest between the migration and public health officers. Nordrhein – Westphalen,
for example, has established a working group to solve this conflict of interest and communicate
better the responsibilities to public health officers. In Bavaria, “posttraumatic stress dysfunction”
(Posttraumatische Belastungsstörung) is increasingly used as a reason to stay in Germany
beyond a deportation order. Bavaria is trying to combat this by staffing its health department
with specialists, but resources are limited.
A major issue faced by the deportation authorities in Bavaria, for example, is the lack of cooperation
between countries. Some countries blatantly refuse to cooperate (e.g. Ethiopia) and others
(e.g. China) make unrealistically high demands about the evidence required to show that an
individual is indeed a citizen of that country.