Berlin’s main refugee center at the city’s former Tegel Airport – considered Germany’s largest – will likely have to expand beyond its current capacity of 7,000 people, Mayor Kai Wegner said on Wednesday.
“I already think that 7,000 is far too much,” Wegner told foreign correspondents in Berlin. “But I cannot rule out that it will become quieter,” he added.
He said the city had agreed to set up additional refugee shelters, but that would likely not happen until 2025 or the year after.
Wegner said it would be up to experts to put a figure on how many additional beds would be needed, but added: “The chance that the numbers there will continue to rise rather than fall is very, very high. This is simply a situation that is unsatisfactory. for me.”
Germany’s 16 states and many local municipalities complain of insufficient support from Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s center-left government to help provide basic services for refugees.
The issue will be on the table again this weekend at a meeting of state premiers, almost a year after the government promised to take action.
Municipalities were facing increasing financing problems, Wegner said, adding that general acceptance among the population was declining, in an apparent reference to far-right gains in recent state elections.
“This is why I simply expect the federal government to act on this,” added Wegner, whose conservatives are in opposition nationally.
“When I say that we have reached a breaking point in some areas, I would now go so far as to say that we are overwhelmed. And that is not just the case in Berlin,” the mayor noted.
