There is a category of shoppers at the sight of whom professionally polite supermarket cashiers suddenly interrupt their usual cooing, purse their lips in offence, and start nervously casting about for sympathetic looks from the queue. Again these asylum seekers with their chip cards! Try dealing with them when they don't speak a word of German!.. By the way, what a joy it is for a small fry to feel that there are even smaller fry in the world! (In her view, anyway.) And as for the asylum seekers, or whatever they're called, besides embarrassment, one can read a sense of guilt on their faces. They just don't have the money to pay for their shopping like everyone else does! Inventive city officials provided them with these wretched chip cards—probably so that everyone would immediately recognize them as strangers. And behind the stony silence of the queue, they imagine solidarity with the cashier who despises them...
Many Berliners believe that this trading system, which has been imposed on refugees for some time now, has a certain racist tinge and is humiliating for those forced to use it. Protest actions were held under the name Antirassistischer Einkauf ('Anti-racist Shopping'). They were carried out in word and deed—not just with slogans; Berliners demonstratively paid for their purchases with chip cards and gave the money to refugees.
Dr. Heidi Knake-Werner, the senator for social affairs, considers the introduction of chip cards a mistaken, discriminatory measure and has spoken out for their abolition. And indeed, from July 1, refugees can breathe a sigh of relief—instead of the tiresome cards, they will receive ordinary euros in cash, which they can use to buy goods where it is more convenient for them, rather than where an official decided for them.
By the way, an interesting detail: if a person has a modest income, they will go shopping at a cheaper store. But as for refugees, who clearly are not in the category of the rich, until recently they were denied the opportunity to buy products at the cheap 'people's' stores such as ALDI, LIDL, PLUS, and so on. Officials picked completely different routes for them. What principle they followed is hard to say. But it is unlikely that it was the desire to brighten up the asylum seekers' lives. However, let us not guess at the reasons, lest some really bad thought come to mind.
We also note that the chip card is by no means a free bureaucratic undertaking. Specifically, by abolishing the cards, the Senate will save 50,000 euros a year, which will not hurt the patchwork city budget at all.
The SPD, the Greens, and the FDP approved the Senate's initiative. The Greens' representative Elfi Jantzen commented: "Forcing people to shop only in certain places is inhumane and, moreover, contributes to their isolation."
The CDU holds a completely different view. The Christian Democrats see the abolition of chip cards as nothing less than arbitrary action. The party's parliamentary managing director, Frank Henkel, stated bluntly that, according to existing legislation, there should be no 'measures' that would contribute to refugees settling in the country. Moreover, giving money directly to asylum seekers has more than once led to a whole series of violations; the money was then used to pay off gangs specializing in smuggling illegal immigrants into the country.
However, the abolition of chip cards will please only the refugees, so to speak, at the city level. For those who are under the care of the districts, everything will remain as before for now, since local officials have literally dug in their heels against any changes. Thus, social affairs advisers in the districts of Reinickendorf and Tempelhof-Schoeneberg (both CDU representatives) said in unison that they would not put up with this and the asylum seekers would not get their hands on the money. Otherwise, they will drink it all away and squander it, or, God forbid, hand it over to gangs.
Well, no one will claim that among refugees or asylum seekers there are no individuals whose stay in the country one would like to reduce to a minimum. As they say, there is a black sheep in every family. But is it worth, for this reason, to lump everyone together as criminals? By the way, the press has often reported cases of corruption and nepotism among officials. However, it would not occur to anyone to declare the whole bureaucratic fraternity as carriers of this vice. And no one has yet invented chip cards instead of salaries for them either...