Merz asks Zelenskyy to curb flow of young people from Ukraine – media
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Thursday that he asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to curb the flow of young Ukrainian men into Germany as refugees, Barron's reports.
"I asked the Ukrainian president to ensure that young men from Ukraine in particular do not come to Germany in ever-increasing numbers, but rather serve in their own country. They are needed there," Merz said after his conversation with the Ukrainian president.
Merz also said that German social welfare rules would soon be changed in a way that would lower payments for Ukrainian refugees and "thus offer greater incentives to find employment". "The benefits for these refugees will be structured in such a way that the incentives to work outweigh the incentive to remain in the welfare system," Merz said at a Berlin business congress.
The article notes that Germany has already accepted around a million Ukrainian refugees since 2022, and since August, when Ukrainian authorities allowed young people aged 18 to 22 to travel outside the country, the number of men in this age group seeking asylum in Germany has risen from just over 100 per week to 1,796 in a week in early October.
