Alleged abuse of benefits | Running against arms

A task force conducting a house search. These should be simplified in the future. Photo: dpa When the tabloid “Bild” begins a text with “Finally!”, nothing good can follow. Bärbel Bas's Social Democratic Labor Ministry and Alexander Dobrindt's CSU-led Interior Ministry are actually serious about their 10-point plan against so-called social abuse. You could also say a 10-point plan against the poor. Or a 10-point plan against Roma and Sinti*zze.

In the future, only EU foreigners who have “lawfully” resided in Germany for five years will receive social benefits. So if you have a visa, a residence permit, a settlement permit or an EU right of free movement. This is intended to overturn a decision by the Federal Social Court that made the opposite possible. The federal government also wants to take tougher action against so-called junk properties.

And all of this to end the gang-like social fraud that is supposedly so damaging to the German economy. A legend that has solidified since the EU's eastward expansion. There were a total of 377 such cases nationwide in 2025. This is the definition of much ado about nothing. But Bas, from Duisburg, lets her party colleagues in her hometown wrap her around her finger. The port city has been known for years for using its own task forces to take extremely harsh – and racist – action against people, predominantly from Romania and Bulgaria.

The particularly perfidious thing about it is the argument that this would protect them from being driven into emergency situations by criminal gangs. If you ask around the people in Duisburg who were evicted within a few hours and who have become homeless, unemployed and destitute as a result of the actions of the scrap property task force, you will hardly be able to avoid their immense gratitude.

However, they would be helped if access to work and living were finally made easier. But the federal government is currently moving rapidly in a completely different direction.

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