The federal government has given in to demands from the states to pay more towards supporting the rising number of refugees.
EDnews informs via DW that Germany's federal government and 16 states have agreed on a slew of new measures to deal with an increase in refugees, at a meeting on Wednesday that ran overtime into the evening.
The federal government led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz will increase the lump sum paid to the 16 state governments to deal with refugees by €1 billion ($1.1 billion) for the year 2023.
However, Chancellor Olaf Scholz's government has so far refused to bow to the states' demand for the payment of a lump sum of €1,000 per refugee, which the states say would prevent further debates as it would also cover any increase in the number of people seeing refuge.
The federal government and the states also agreed to modernize their IT systems in order to speed up asylum applications, which currently take 26 months on average.
Successful applicants would have a faster pathway to asylum while unsuccessful applicants could be deported more quickly.
"Controlling and limiting irregular migration" is a priority for Germany, Scholz said.
