Such people should either find work in Germany or go back to their home country and enlist in the army, lawmaker Stephan Mayer believes
Berlin should stop spending taxpayer money on social benefits for fighting-age Ukrainian men, Bundestag MP Stephan Mayer has suggested. Such people should either find work in Germany or go back to Ukraine and enlist in the army, the lawmaker believes.
More than 304,000 Ukrainian men between the ages of 18 and 63 have fled to Germany since the start of the conflict, according to data cited by the German tabloid Bild on Monday. Roughly half of them are getting the so-called ‘Burgergeld’, or citizen’s benefits, which are normally reserved for German citizens and EU nationals, who are either unemployed or have an extremely low income.
Ukrainians were granted the privilege under a special law passed in May 2022, giving them larger benefits than what other asylum-seekers receive.
“Citizen’s benefits for Ukrainian men of fighting age must finally be stopped,” Mayer told Bild, commenting on the issue. “If almost 151,000 Ukrainians aged between 18 and 63 are getting social benefits from us, then something is wrong.” According to the lawmaker, such people should not be entitled to such assistance and “must either work here in Germany or perform military service in Ukraine.”
According to the German Federal Employment Agency, the federal government spends €1.328 billion ($1.53 billion) annually on ‘citizen’s benefits’ for fighting-age Ukrainians.
Germany has been one of the primary destinations for Ukrainians fleeing the conflict. According to various estimates, more than a million Ukrainians were residing in Germany as of December 2024. Last October, Stern magazine estimated that approximately 720,000 Ukrainians were receiving ‘citizen’s benefits.’ Then-Chancellor Olaf Scholz also repeatedly spoke about the need to make Ukrainian refugees work.
Kiev barred most men aged between 18 and 60 years old from leaving Ukraine when it launched its general mobilization in 2022, but many managed to leave anyway. According to Ukrainian lawmaker Anna Skorokhod, some 1.2 million draft dodgers had fled the country illegally as of December 2024.
