According to Section 24(1) of the Asylum Act, the BAMF:
‘… [S]hall inform the foreigner early on in a language he can reasonably be supposed to understand about the course of the procedure and about his rights and duties, especially concerning deadlines and the consequences of missing a deadline, and about possibilities to return voluntarily.’
The provision was changed with the entry into force of the 2022 Act on the acceleration of asylum court proceedings and asylum procedures on 1 January 2023.[1] The reform introduced the requirement of informing applicants “early on” instead of “after the lodging of the asylum application”, which was the previous wording. Information is to be provided orally in groups (see Oral information). Another change introduced by the reform is the duty to inform not only about the asylum procedure, but also about possibilities to return voluntarily after the rejection of the asylum application.
For the impact of the Covid-19 outbreak on information provision to asylum applicants see the 2021 Update to the AIDA Country Report for Germany.[2]
Written information
Various other sections of the Asylum Act also contain obligations on the authorities to inform asylum seekers on certain aspects of the procedure. Accordingly, asylum seekers receive various information sheets when reporting to the authorities and/or upon arrival at the initial reception centre,[3] including the following:
- An information sheet on the rights and duties during the procedure and on the proceedings in general (‘Belehrung nach § 10 AsylG und allgemeine Verfahrenshinweise’), to be handed out by the authority where an applicant first voices the wish to apply for asylum (the border police, the local immigration authority, the police, the reception centre or the BAMF; see Making and registering the application);[4]
- An instruction on the obligation to comply immediately with a referral to the competent branch office of the BAMF and to appear in person immediately or at a date determined for the formal registration of the asylum application (‘Belehrung nach § 14 Abs. 1 und § 23 Abs. 2 AsylG’);[5]
- An instruction on the obligation to comply immediately with a referral to the initial reception centre (‘Belehrung nach § 20 Abs. 1 AsylG’)[6];
- An instruction on the obligation to comply with a decision to be referred to another reception centre, including the obligation to register with the authorities in case of such a referral (‘Belehrung nach § 22 Abs. 3 AsylG’).[7]
These information sheets are available in German and 44 other languages.[8] In BAMF branch offices in arrival centres, a video available in six languages is shown to applicants explaining the asylum procedure as well as their rights and duties.[9]
In addition, other leaflets and publications by the BAMF are available in several languages, although they are not systematically handed out to all asylum seekers.[10] These include:
- Information on the appointment for the interview in the asylum procedure (Informationsblatt zum Anhörungstermin),[11]
- Information on the asylum application (Informationsblatt zur Asylantragstellung).[12]
- The stages of the German asylum procedure (Ablauf des deutschen Asylverfahrens).[13]
Furthermore, asylum seekers are handed out instructions concerning the Eurodac Regulation (in accordance with Article 18 of the Eurodac Regulation) and on the data collected in the course of the asylum procedure by the BAMF. These instructions are available in 44 languages.
The applicant has to sign an acknowledgment of the receipt of the information leaflets. In some reception centres, further information is handed out or made available through notice boards or posters (e.g. information on the office hours of authorities, NGOs and other institutions), but there is no systematic practice for the distribution of such additional information.
It has been a long-standing criticism from lawyers and NGOs that both the written instructions and the oral briefings provided by the Federal Office are ‘rather abstract and standardised’.[14] In 2016 it was particularly criticised, that the information is notsuitable to render the significance and content of questions during interviews sufficiently understandable to applicants. In the ‘Memorandum to enhance fair and diligent asylum procedures in Germany’, published by an alliance of 12 German NGOs in November 2016, several deficiencies were identified in the context of the right to information.[15] Since autumn 2015, the BAMF has developed a number of new, more accessible information products, including information on the website, leaflets, explainer videos and an app for newly arrived refugees.[16] Nevertheless, stakeholders reported that especially for asylum seekers with disabilities, such concerns persist to date.[17]
Oral information
Oral information for asylum applicants now mainly consists of the ‘voluntary independent state-run counselling’ that was introduced with the so-called ‘Orderly-Return-Law’, in force since 21 August 2019 (Section 12a Asylum Act). With the entry into force of the 2022 Act on the acceleration of asylum court proceedings and asylum procedures[18] on 1 January 2023, the state-run counselling is to be replaced by independent counselling, financed by the Federal Government but carried out by welfare associations or ‘other civil society actors’.[19] This is in line with long-standing demands form welfare associations (see below). Counselling consists of two stages: group sessions with basic information on the asylum procedure as well as on return procedures, followed by the second stage of individual counselling sessions. The BAMF will continue to carry out the first stage of counselling as described below, whereas independent organisations will carry out individual counselling.[20] The funding process for independent counselling associations started in February 2023 where associations could file interest for funding. After a summary oversight, the BAMF then required the associations to file the encompassing application for funding.[21] EUR 20 million of financing were provided for in 2023. Welfare organisations criticise that the money was only disbursed in the summer of 2023, which delayed the availability of independent counselling or caused financial gaps for those associations which provided counselling services prior to the official distribution of funding. Additionally, NGOs have been criticial of the amount foreseen, stating that EUR 20 million is not sufficient for nationwide independent counselling. From the AnkER centre in Manching-Ingoldstadt, the NGO in charge can currently offer two fulltime counselling positions for up to 600 asylum applicants, even though the BAMF’s general recommendation is one fulltime position for 180 asylum applicants.[22] The sum to be spent for personnel suffices only for early career and not for experienced personnel, which make it difficult to find employees and which in combination with the high number of cases, causes an overburdening of the staff.[23] Despite the envisaged goal of EUR 80 million annually, for 2024 again only EUR 25 million are calculated, this time for the whole year, not as in 2023 for the second half of the year.[24] According to welfare associations, the insecurity as to how much funding will be provided in the upcoming years and under which circumstances the funding will be awarded has led to the withdrawal of associations from their funding applications for the counselling service.[25]
Another problem arises due to the absence of rules on the access of welfare associations to arrival and AnkER centres. Since there are no federal rules governing the access, it is up to the discretion of the local authorities whether welfare associations have access to the centres. In Munich, the Refugee Council tried to provide independent mobile counselling prior 2023 and has been denied access. The Federal Administrative Court upheld the denial in 2023. The court decided that access must be granted in individual case after registration and only where an asylum applicant has demanded counselling. However, local authorities are not obliged to grant open access to the facilities.[26] This leads to legal uncertainty as to whether systematic access will be provided to welfare associations under the new rules on counselling. Overall, several associations criticise that due to the lack of funding, the uncoordinated funding process and the legal uncertainty as to whether access to accommodations centres is provided, access to individual counselling cannot be guaranteed in Germany.
Prior to the reforms in January 2023, government advice covered the period from the lodging of the asylum application to the explanation of a first instance decision; now the legal conselling can also cover appeal proceedings.[27] According to the BAMF, the staff who offered the counselling underwent a one-week training and was ‘organisationally separated from the asylum area’.[28] Procedure counselling was first introduced in a pilot project together with welfare associations.[29] It was then established first in all AnkER and functionally equivalent centres and has been rolled out to the rest of the BAMF branch offices since 2020.[30]
As of 31 December 2022, counselling was available in 46 BAMF branch offices.[31] Throughout 2022, 37,644 applicants took part in the first stage counselling, while 3,147 received individual counselling (second stage). This is an increase in comparison to 2021 (1,928 individual sessions, while 25,784 persons took part in group sessions), but still shows that only around 15% of the 244,132 persons who applied for asylum in 2022 (see Statistics) received individual advice. More information on counselling during the Covid-19 outbreak can be found in the 2021 Update to the AIDA Country Report for Germany.[32] No information on the availability of counselling and on the number of sessions is available for 2023 as of April 2024.
The BAMF counselling sessions represent an improvement compared to the situation prior to August 2019 when no information was systematically provided to asylum seekers.[33] Nevertheless, the system is heavily criticised by NGOs as group counselling sessions tend to be organised within a very short period before the personal interview with the BAMF and the information provided is limited (i.e. the BAMF tends to provide general information on the asylum procedure, sometimes focusing only on asylum seekers’ obligations and also on information which has nothing to do with the procedure, such as the so-called ‘return options’).[34]
In addition to the counselling services as regulated by the asylum act, asylum seekers are orally informed about ‘the significance and the proceedings of the interview’ and they are instructed about their rights and obligations at the beginning of the interview.[35] A more detailed overview of which instructions are given at the beginning of the interview are included in the internal guidelines of the BAMF.[36] The internal guidelines indicate that the applicant shall be informed about the procedure, the importance of the interview and their duty to cooperate.
Finally, access to information at the airport is described as particularly difficult, inter alia due to the speed of the procedure. Asylum seekers reportedly undergo the airport procedure without understanding the applicable rules and steps[37] (see also Border procedure (border and transit zones)). The welfare association Caritas hopes that the funding for independent counselling will also enhance the availability of counselling services at the airport but asserts for 2023 that there is not enough available data yet to evaluate whether there have been any improvements.[38]
[1] Official Gazette I no. Nr. 56 (2022) of 28 December 2022, 2817.
[2] AIDA, Country Report Germany – Update on the year 2021, April 2022, available at: https://bit.ly/3XnN7RS, 85.
[3] BAMF, DA-Asyl (Dienstanweisung Asylverfahren) – Belehrungen (internal directives of the BAMF), version as of 1 January 2023, available in German at: http://bit.ly/3J5jPTA, 151.
[4] DA-AVS (internal directives for the asylum procedure secretariat), 80, version as of March 2014, available in German at: https://bit.ly/3QPQZsl, 80.
[5] Available on the BAMF website at: https://bit.ly/2U0lyyv.
[6] Available on the BAMF website at: http://bit.ly/3XGnpYs.
[7] Available on the BAMF website at: http://bit.ly/3IWpqM0.
[8] As of January, these were Albanian, Amharic, Arabic. Armenian, Azerbaijani, Bambara, Bosnian, Burmese, Chinese, Dari, English, Farsi, French, Fulani, Georgian, Hausa, Hindi, Italian, Croatian, Kurdish-Badinani, Kurdish-Kurmanji, Kurdish-Sorani, Kurdish-Zaza, Lingala, Macedonian, Mongolian, Nepali, Oromo, Pashto, Punjabi, Russian, Serbian, Sinhalese, Somali, Spanish, Tamil, Tigrinya, Turkish, Twi, Uyghur, Ukrainian, Urdu, Vietnamese, Wolof.
[9] The video is available in German, Albanian, Arabic, English, French and Persian on the BAMF website, https://bit.ly/3tz57Nd.
[10] According to information provided by the BAMF on 9 March 2023, the leaflets ‘can be handed out to the foreigner in case of individual need within the framework of the asylum procedure counselling or the information in group discussions’.
[11] Available on the BAMF website (only in German) at: https://bit.ly/3wa8Osv.
[12] Available on the BAMF website at: https://bit.ly/3bok08E.
[13] Available in English at: https://bit.ly/3drFPWF.
[14] Amnesty International et al., ed. Memorandum zur derzeitigen Situation des deutschen Asylverfahrens (Memoranda on current situation of the German asylum procedure), 2005, available in German at: https://bit.ly/4buofPY, 21.
[15] Memorandum Alliance, Memorandum für faire und sorgfältige Asylverfahren in Deutschland. Standards zur Integrate any of this?Gewährleistung der asylrechtlichen Verfahrensgarantien, November 2016, available in German at: https://bit.ly/3ShphWJ, 14.
[16] Janne Grote, The Changing Influx of Asylum Seekers in 2014-2016: Responses in Germany,
Focussed Study by the German National Contact Point for the European Migration Network (EMN), October 2017, study available in English at https://bit.ly/33iJAO8, 39.
[17] See e.g. Handicap International, Grundlegende Informationen zur Lebenssituation geflüchteter Menschen mit Behinderung, available in German at: https://bit.ly/4a7aIft and German Institute for Human Rights, Geflüchtete Menschen mit Behinderungen – Regelungen zur Identifikation, Unterbringung und Versorgung gesetzlich verankern, 16 June 2022, available in German at: https://bit.ly/3UP2JxS.
[18] Official Gazette I no. Nr. 56 (2022) of 28 December 2022, 2817.
[19] SPD, BÜNDNIS 90/DIE GRÜNEN and FDP, Draft Act on the Acceleration of asylum court proceedings and asylum procedures, 20/4327, 8 November 2022, available in German at: at: https://bit.ly/48hQe2k, 22.
[20] SPD, BÜNDNIS 90/DIE GRÜNEN and FDP, Draft Act on the Acceleration of asylum court proceedings and asylum procedures, 20/4327, 8 November 2022, available in German at: https://bit.ly/48hQe2k, 28.
[21] Asyl.net, Bundesregierung startet Förderprogramm für behördenunabhängige Asylverfahrensberatung, 1 February 2023, https://bit.ly/47XkRdp.
[22] BR.de, Hilfe beim Asylverfahren: Zwei Berater für 600 Flüchtlinge, 1 November 2023, available in German at: https://bit.ly/3u42vJT.
[23] Ibid.
[24] ProAsyl, Notwendige Asylverfahrensberatung weiterhin nicht flächendeckend vorhanden, 6 October 2023, avialable in German at: https://bit.ly/48UjU6H.
[25] Ibid.
[26] Federal Administrative Court, Decision 1 C 40.21, 28 March 2023, available in Germant at: https://bit.ly/480lN0o, para. 27f.
[27] Section 12a (2) German Asylum Act.
[28] See AIDA, Country Report Germany – Update on the year 2022, April 2023, available at: https://bit.ly/3UChWUr, 99.
[29] Information provided by the BAMF, 9 March 2023. For more background information on the introduction of asylum procedure counselling and the role of NGOs and welfare associations see the 2019 AIDA Update on Germany. The internal evaluation report of the pilot project is available online at: https://bit.ly/3FC8LYK..
[30] BAMF, Evaluation of AnkER Facilities and Functionally Equivalent Facilities, Research Report 37 of the BAMF Research Centre, 2021, available in English at: https://bit.ly/3FgxXnq, 41.
[31] See AIDA, Country Report Germany – Update on the year 2022, April 2023, available at: https://bit.ly/3UChWUr, 99.
[32] AIDA, Country Report Germany – Update on the year 2021, April 2022, available at: https://bit.ly/3XnN7RS, 85.
[33] Markus Kraft, ‘Die ANKER-Einrichtung Oberfranken’, Asylmagazin 10-11/2018, available in German at: https://bit.ly/2P36MEe, 353.
[34] ECRE, The AnkER centres Implications for asylum procedures, reception and return, April 2019, available at: https://bit.ly/2W7dICZ.
[35] Section 24 (1) Asylum Act.
[36] BAMF, DA-Asyl (Dienstanweisung Asylverfahren) – Belehrungen (internal directives of the BAMF), version as of 1 January 2023, available in German at: http://bit.ly/3J5jPTA.
[37] ECRE, Airport procedures in Germany Gaps in quality and compliance with guarantees, April 2019, available at: https://bit.ly/2QgOmAH.
[38] Caritas, Auch im Schnellverfahren am Flughafen die Rechte wahren, 11 December 2023, available in German at: https://bit.ly/49eEcHY.