In the summer of 2015, hundreds of thousands of people left the region around Syria, fleeing not only war and persecution but also hunger. Then-Chancellor Angela Merkel decided, for humanitarian reasons, not to close Germany’s borders. Pragmatism, improvisation, and broad commitment from civil society and politics shaped the scenes at train stations and arrival centers. Carried by an open, solidaristic society, the notion of a specifically German “welcome culture” spread around the world. With the phrase “Wir schaffen das” (“We can do this”), the chancellor expressed her confidence in the population – while also acknowledging the short-, medium-, and long-term challenges.
Numerous municipalities and cities became actively involved in receiving refugees, organizing accommodation, and facilitating participation. At the same time, many reached the limits of their capacity and had to improvise: sports halls, tents, and container villages were rapidly set up. Tens of thousands of citizens took people seeking protection into their own homes. Despite this broad support, right-wing populist movements seized on the situation to advance a nationalist and anti-migration agenda. Political and public conflicts over upper limits, security, and deterrence policies intensified. Racist violence and attacks on shelters increased significantly.
The year 2015 marked a paradigm shift: refugees were not only to be admitted, but also given real opportunities for integration – through language courses, access to the labor market, and new prospects for staying. With the reception of Ukrainian refugees from 2022 onward, this integration policy was once again put to the test.
Looking back at 2015–2025, two key turning points in refugee policy stand out in particular: the admission of Syrian refugees from 2015 and of Ukrainian refugees from 2022. Both provide important points of comparison for political, social, and institutional responses – and raise questions about how refugee and integration policy can be shaped in the future in times of scarce resources and increasingly restrictive entry regimes. These developments are evident not only in Germany, but also in Europe and the United States – including the instrumentalization of migration for nationalist and illiberal politics.
The Heinrich Böll Foundation and the German Center for Integration and Migration Research (DeZIM) – commissioned by the Bundestag to analyze and contextualize the social situation on the basis of facts and evidence – invite you to a specialist conference to take a nuanced look back at the past ten years together with experts from civil society, academia, and politics and to develop future perspectives:
Actors on the ground: Can German bureaucracy act pragmatically and flexibly?
Asylum law: What role does it play in an increasingly migration-hostile world?
The right to integration: Who has contributed what – and how has the understanding of integration changed?
Society in transition: Cohesion and solidarity vs. fear and overload – what lessons can we draw from the last decade?
The conference will be accompanied by readings and subsequent Q&A sessions by The Poetry Project. Participating poets from the project include Ali Alzaeem, Mykhailo Krasilnikov, Mahnaz Jafari, Jamal Abasi, Rojin Namer, and Mariia Kaziun.
You can find the full program and further information here. Registration is required.
