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Germany deports 81 Afghan nationals, 2nd flight since Taliban's return
The Interior Ministry said a flight took off Friday morning carrying 81 Afghans, all of them men who had previously come to judicial authorities' attention. It said in a statement that the deportation was carried out with the help of Qatar, and said the government aims to deport more people to Afghanistan in the future.
More than 10 months ago, Germany's previous government deported Afghan nationals to their homeland for the first time since the Taliban returned to power in 2021. Then-Chancellor Olaf Scholz vowed to step up deportations of asylum-seekers.
New Chancellor Friedrich Merz made tougher migration policy a central plank of his campaign for Germany's election in February.
Just after he took office in early May, the government stationed more police at the border and said some asylum-seekers trying to enter Europe's biggest economy would be turned away. It also has suspended family reunions for many migrants.
The flight took off hours before German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt plans to meet his counterparts from five neighboring countries France, Poland, Austria, Denmark and the Czech Republic as well as the European Union's commissioner responsible for migration, Magnus Brunner. Dobrindt is hosting the meeting to discuss migration on the Zugspitze, Germany's highest peak, on the Austrian border.
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In December 2022, the members of the G7 (US, UK, France, Italy, Germany, Japan, Canada and EU) had announced their intention to introduce price caps on the purchase of Russian crude to $60 per barrel as a means to reduce the overall revenues for Moscow. 'While the EU's ban on importing Russian seaborne crude oil and petroleum products remains fully in place, the price cap will allow European operators to transport Russian oil to third countries, provided its price remains strictly below the cap,' the EU had said in a statement in December 2022 on the implementation of the G7 price cap. However, since then the cost for Brent crude oil has steadily decreased, with it trading around $68 a barrel currently, edging closer to the G7 price cap. The EU, originally in June this year, proposed a further reduction of the price cap to $45 a barrel to ensure the sanctions remain effective in curbing Russia's oil exports. 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