Less than 20 percent of Ukrainians who fled to Germany during the last two years have got a job, one local media outlet announced last week, noting that some 700,000 Ukrainian refugees in the country currently receive unemployment benefits.
So many Ukrainian migrants appearing content to just collect welfare has now become a “drain” on Germany’s public finances, said Gunnar Beck, a member of the European Parliament for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
“You can assume that each migrant, including all children, will cost the job at taxpayer (sic!) around €45,000 per year. These figures have been confirmed from a number of regional studies. So we are talking about a very considerable sum running into many billions of euros,” he said.
His sentiment was echoed by Dr. Dirk Spaniel, a member of the Bundestag from the hard right party, who observed that Germany has a “very generous welfare system, especially for refugees."
“We have, like in Germany, 5.5 million refugees or people on so-called welfare blanket, which is very generous. Ukraine needs just a part of it. And compared to other European countries, our welfare system is much more generous and therefore people coming from Ukraine and from other countries don't have to work in Germany,” Spaniel remarked.
Beck also lamented that “many Ukrainians are abusing the German system,” noting how “tens if not hundreds” of them would “take a bus to some town in Germany every fortnight to register for benefits and then return back to Ukraine.”
He added that many Ukrainian refugees who currently reside in Germany have become “dependent on public handouts” and have no intention of returning home, thus threatening to “remain a burden on the public finances for many years to come.”
“Well, I'm afraid the German government would have to do the necessary but uncomfortable. They would have to tell Ukrainians that the boat is full and that Germany is not large enough a country to solve all the problems of the world,” Beck said.
The MEP also speculated that at least some of the Ukrainian women who now reside in Germany may be currently listed as unemployed for a reason he dubbed “politically incorrect.”
“But if I'm honest, I suspect that a fair number of the Ukrainian women who go to Germany may be engaged in prostitution. When I say a fair number, I don't mean the majority. But it could be, let's say, 5%. Well, obviously, women engaged in prostitution are not officially registered as working,” Beck suggested.