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International Migration News - Volume #8 | |
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Germany: Migrants, Asylum
Germany's political parties continued to debate how best to deal with immigration and to integrate foreigners. The major opposition parties, the Christian Democratic and Christian Socialist Union parties, released proposals for integration in November 2000 that rejected "multiculturalism" and urged that all persons living in Germany embrace the "guiding culture" that includes respect for the cultural values of Christianity and humanism. The CSU emphasized that integration is a two-way street and that foreigners wanting to integrate should learn German; that spouses should not be able to join immigrants in Germany unless they have learned some German; and that the number of asylum seekers, about 100,000 a year, be reduced while more visas are issued to skilled and professional foreigners. The governing Social Democrats and Greens countered that the CDU-CSU opposition was playing with fire by seeking to revive German nationalism. However, at an SPD meeting on December 19, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said that foreigners living in Germany should learn that German "integration is only possible through language," and that the dual nationality law approved in 1999 is promoting the integration of foreigners. In December 2000, Schroeder said that: "we have to have clear policies on the immigrants...We simply need them. We will have some concrete proposals in a few months and will quickly turn them into law." However, in a bid to placate the SPD and Greens, he said "Our asylum laws will not be touched. We must remain generous about granting asylum to political refugees." Berlin's Kreuzberg district, where one-third of the 150,000 residents are foreigners, is sometimes called "Little Istanbul" because of its increasing Turkish population. Work/Asylum. In December 2000, Germany ended the ban imposed in 1997 that prohibited asylum applicants from working in Germany. Asylum applicants will be able to work after one year in Germany and war refugees will be able to work immediately on their arrival in Germany. German authorities expect to issue 4,000 green cards to non-EU IT workers between August and December 2000; up to 10,000 green cards can be issued. On November 27, Sadako Ogata, outgoing UN High Commissioner for Refugees, praised efforts by the German government to fight right-wing extremism. Ogata and Wolfgang Thierse, president of the lower house of the German parliament, called for the protection of a basic right to asylum. Thierse said that the Geneva Convention, which commits countries to offering asylum to refugees, must remain the basis of national asylum policy.
Andrew McCathie, "Germans fear
flood of low-cost labour from E.U. enlargement," Deutsche
Presse-Agentur, December 22, 2000. | |
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