Consensus on German immigration policy

By Batuk Gathani

BRUSSELS, AUG. 4. The Christian Democrats - Germany's main Opposition party - gave grudging approval to the ruling party's draft immigration law on Friday night.

It is hoped that by this year's end Germany will pass ground- breaking legislation on immigration. The German strategy is essentially to stem the flow of illegal asylum seekers and economic migrants from Third World countries and encourage legal immigration of hi-tech workers to fill vacancies in the information technology and electronic engineering sectors. Germany desperately needs more foreign workers but political parties in the country have made every possible attempt to preserve Germany's ethnic and cultural homogeneity.

Germany is not a multi-cultural society. The spectre of racism and xenophobia in recent years spearheaded by neo-Nazis has frightened many foreigners. Germany hopes to put an end to all that by encouraging legal immigration of high-skilled workers with all-party consensus. For example, it is proposed that highly qualified migrants, such as engineers and information technology specialists, may be granted permanent residency, which is rated as an improvement on the proposed U.S. style ``green card'' scheme. Germany hopes to attract such workers from Eastern Europe, Russia and India. Other potential immigrants will be able to enter the country via a point system.

The country's 73 lakh legal foreign residents account for nine per cent of the total population. The racist political parties have argued that with high rate of unemployment foreign workers should be ``expelled'' to make room for unemployed countrymen. All this has made immigration a contentious issue and regular reports of racist attacks on foreigners have compounded crises for the authorities on the race relations front.

The general elections are not due till the end of next year. Hence, by end of this year the Government wants to pass the new legislation to ensure that immigration does not become a key election issue and with all-party consensus this can be achieved. The head of the Federation of German Industry, Mr. Lodolf von Wartenberg, has welcomed the current proposals but said the procedures were ``too bureaucratic and restrictive''.

Last night, the Christian Democrats broadly approved the Interior Minister, Mr. Otto Schily's proposals which will lure skilled workers and stem the flow of illegal economic migrants.

Other European countries are also looking at ways to improve the ``quality'' of immigrants to ensure less emphasis is placed on ``quantity''.

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Section  : International
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