Basic security and abuse debate: Action plan against social fraud decided

Comprehensive data exchange between the authorities, increased inspection of junk properties, employers' liability for fictitious employment - these are some of the points in the "Action plan against abuse of social benefits and exploitation, especially in connection with EU immigration", which the federal government decided on in the cabinet on Wednesday. “We are holding those behind organized exploitation more accountable,” said Federal Labor Minister Bärbel Bas (SPD), who presented the action plan together with Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU).

The ten-point plan provides, among other things, to increase the flow of data between social, immigration, registration, financial, security and construction authorities as well as health and nursing care insurance companies and to use “non-discriminatory AI-supported analysis systems” “to detect abuse of social benefits”. In the future, employers will also be liable for overpaid social benefits if they only reported employment as a sham so that top-up benefits can be received. Municipalities should also have easier access to dilapidated properties. “Overcrowding” is intended to be addressed more effectively through the reporting law.

“We are in favor of taking action against organized structures that take advantage of people's needs, but we fear that the action plan will place EU citizens who receive benefits from the job center under general suspicion,” says Natalia Bugaj-Wolfram, consultant for migration social work at the General Parity Association, to the taz. Experience from the advisory centers of the entire association shows that EU citizens who work in Germany and apply for benefits from the job center for themselves and their families are often denied these benefits.

It is often difficult for those affected to provide the necessary documents, especially when language barriers make access difficult. "Some EU citizens work in precarious conditions out of ignorance: in construction, in delivery services, in the catering industry, after verbal agreements and for cash pay. These people need to be better informed about their rights as employees in Germany," says Bugaj-Wolfram.

The job centers also work with “checklists” to check whether an actual employment relationship exists, which require a lot of very differentiated information and evidence, for example about the route to work, the car used, the passengers, pay slips, and the procurement of work tools.

According to EU freedom of movement law and case law, EU citizens have the right to supplementary social benefits in Germany if they have lived here for more than three months and work with a salary of more than 250 euros per month.

However, the additional benefit is often denied by the job center “with reference to paragraph 7,” says Harald Thomé from the Tacheles self-help association in Wuppertal. The paragraph in the Social Security Code II allows benefits to be denied if applicants are only in Germany for the “purpose of looking for work”. Thomé fears that the action plan is a further step towards tightening “in order to increase the hurdles for EU citizens to receive social benefits”.