Germans Offer Cash to Return Refugees

A German state plans to offer African countries more than £5,000 a head to accept rejected black asylum seekers - regardless of their nationality.

A spokesman for the government of the city-state of Hamburg said yesterday that talks had begun with the embassies of several countries. He hoped the first deal could be signed this year.

The proposal is bound to raise fears of an all-out push by the far right in Europe to capitalise on Jean-Marie Le Pen's astonishing performance in the first round of the French presidential election.

The right has already gained ground and power in many countries on the back of strong campaigns targeting fears about immigration.

The German idea is the brainchild of Ronald Schill, a former judge who was swept into office last year on a wave of fear and anti-immigrant sentiment set off by the discovery that several of the September 11 hijackers had lived in Hamburg. His newly founded Law and Order party won more than 20% of the vote in an election weeks after the attacks in the US.

Mr Schill, dubbed "Judge Merciless" because of his stiff sentencing policies when he sat on the bench, has responsibility for justice and the police in a coalition administration that includes the centre-right. Hamburg, with Berlin and Bremen, is one of three German cities whichenjoy a broad measure of self-government.

Mr Schill and his party have made little impact beyond their city of origin, but he remains an intensely controversial figure in Germany and his proposal could scarcely be more explosive.

The plan is designed to tackle the problem of immigrants who enter Europe without documentation to hide their country of origin and make deportation impossible.

Mr Schill told Focus magazine that he would offer up to €8,300 to African countries for each person they took whose application for asylum had been refused. A spokesman for Hamburg's interior ministry said there were about 2,600 rejected asylum seekers in the city, each costing it more than €8,000 a year.

"There is a group - predominantly made up of black Africans - who deliberately refuse to cooperate with investigations into their country of origin," he said. "They arrive and throw away their passports. It's a clear strategy on their part."

He was quoted by Focus as saying that, according to his information, the expulsions could be carried out against the will of the asylum seekers so long as the destination state was prepared to cooperate.

The success of Mr Le Pen in the French presidential elections has highlighted the rise of the right and ultra-right in Europe, amid popular disenchantment with the performance of leftwing governments, concerns about immigration and a belief that an ever-closer European Union is eroding national sovereignty.

In Denmark, a centre-right coalition underpinned by the ultra-right Danish People's party won power last November and has drafted tough new asylum policies and cut aid to the developing world.

In Portugal, a rightwing coalition which includes the fiercely anti-immigration Popular party, led by a crusading rightwing journalist, won power last month. In the Netherlands, a flamboyant anti-immigration gay politician called Pim Fortuyn is forecast to win up to 20% of the vote in next month's general election after becoming the biggest political force in Rotterdam in local elections.

In Belgium, the far-right Vlaams Blok party became the biggest political force in Antwerp in October 2000. It wants to repatriate all non-European foreigners.

In Norway, an administration propped up by the far-right Progress party wants immigration capped at 1,000 people a year.

Key posts in the Italian government are held by Umberto Bossi, leader of the xenophobic Northern League and Gianfranco Fini, leader of the post-fascist National Alliance, while in Austria, the anti-immigration Freedom party holds six cabinet posts.