Merkel Aims to Boost Immigration in Break With Germany’s Past

"Chancellor Angela Merkel called on Germans to sweep away decades of reticence and face up to “some hard truths” in accepting policy changes from immigration to education needed to keep Europe’s biggest economy competitive.

Germany will fall behind in global economic competition if it fails to address its shrinking population, Merkel told a government-backed conference on the country’s demographic challenges, touting a signature project she says she’ll pursue if she wins a third term in federal elections on Sept. 22."

Merkel Aims to Boost Immigration in Break With Germany

It seems anti-immigration right-wingers need to update their rhetoric when quoting Chancellor Merkel...

IIRC, there was a report a few weeks ago that immigration from other EU countries (especially those with high unemployment, such as Greece, Spain or Portugal) has significantly increased.

I'd say immigration is most beneficial for Germany. As long as we take care to minimize problems that fuel right-wing rhetorics. Which means we should not let just everybody in, but preferably those with a good education, instead of those who then burden our already strained social systems.

One would be mistaken to not read further into the OP's PC happy-headline.
I doubt Merkel wants the same Middle Easterners and North Africans abusing the rest of Europe.

the article Does go one to elucidate said:

"..Since then, Germany has benefited from an influx of people looking for work, many from the crisis-hit countries of southern Europe, particularly Spain and Greece. Merkel welcomed official statistics released May 7 showing that about 370,000 more people arrived in Germany last year than left, many of them well qualified. Even so, research by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found that Germany’s reputation as a host country is “very bad,” Merkel said.

“We are considered a closed place, a country that is very complicated to get to,” Merkel told delegates, saying that she wants Germany to become “an open country that is very welcoming to skilled workers.”

Click to expand...

She would Not approve of turning Munich into Malmo.
or Berlin into Birmingham or Lyon.

paris said:

It seems anti-immigration right-wingers need to update their rhetoric when quoting Chancellor Merkel...

Click to expand...

I remember I was in London when the shockwaves of Merkel's "multiculturalism has failed" speech arrived. I heard her speech in context, and her actual point was that the government should encourage integration and learning of the German language (there are too many 3rd generation immigrants who don't speak German properly), and that decades of indiffernce towards the formation of parallel societies were now having devastating consequences. Her words were badly chosen but it was not a speech against cultural diversity. I remember it was a bit hard to explain that to my British and American friends. In this case, the agenda of right wing extremists matched the agenda of the media. Headlines like "Merkel against diversity" sell better than "Merkel addresses integration issues and discusses possible solutions". And the bigots from the far right showed Merkel as a famous European politician who finally said what they had always said.

paris said:

"Chancellor Angela Merkel called on Germans to sweep away decades of reticence and face up to “some hard truths” in accepting policy changes from immigration to education needed to keep Europe’s biggest economy competitive.

Germany will fall behind in global economic competition if it fails to address its shrinking population, Merkel told a government-backed conference on the country’s demographic challenges, touting a signature project she says she’ll pursue if she wins a third term in federal elections on Sept. 22."

Merkel Aims to Boost Immigration in Break With Germany

It seems anti-immigration right-wingers need to update their rhetoric when quoting Chancellor Merkel...

Click to expand...

I really do wish you read the entire article before posting it. It says there that the new agreements Merkel has planned are with European countries. For countries like Spain, Greece and Italy to encourage their unemployed, skilled workers to go to Germany. Why? Because I think Merkel doesn't want Berlin to suffer the same fate as Paris did 7 years ago, London 2 years ago and Stockholm is now.

"Multiculturalism" of ghettos and double standards has failed long before the word was invented. Multiculturalism as in: allowing people of different cultural backgrounds to come and build their future together has no reason to fail.

Well, competition for immigrants is beginning to picking up. Demographic realities should be clear even to those who refuse to accept moral and economic arguments for increased immigration.

Isn't the United States about to take that great leap forward?

Cyrylek said:

"Multiculturalism" of ghettos and double standards has failed long before the word was invented. Multiculturalism as in: allowing people of different cultural backgrounds to come and build their future together has no reason to fail.

Well, competition for immigrants is beginning to picking up. Demographic realities should be clear even to those who refuse to accept moral and economic arguments for increased immigration.

Click to expand...

specklebang said:

Isn't the United States about to take that great leap forward?

Click to expand...

I certainly hope so. Cutting immigration now is approximately the most idiotic thing we could do, as a society - the 1924 all over again? - not gonna happen.

German guy said:

IIRC, there was a report a few weeks ago that immigration from other EU countries (especially those with high unemployment, such as Greece, Spain or Portugal) has significantly increased.

I'd say immigration is most beneficial for Germany. As long as we take care to minimize problems that fuel right-wing rhetorics. Which means we should not let just everybody in, but preferably those with a good education, instead of those who then burden our already strained social systems.

Click to expand...

It's an interesting situation. There's several European countries with highly-industrialized economies and zero-to-negative population growth. A highly-skilled worker from Greece or Turkey or Slovakia or wherever, young and starting a family, might be in a position of being offered immigration incentives.

Sanddune said:

I remember I was in London when the shockwaves of Merkel's "multiculturalism has failed" speech arrived. I heard her speech in context, and her actual point was that the government should encourage integration and learning of the German language (there are too many 3rd generation immigrants who don't speak German properly), and that decades of indiffernce towards the formation of parallel societies were now having devastating consequences. Her words were badly chosen but it was not a speech against cultural diversity. I remember it was a bit hard to explain that to my British and American friends. In this case, the agenda of right wing extremists matched the agenda of the media. Headlines like "Merkel against diversity" sell better than "Merkel addresses integration issues and discusses possible solutions". And the bigots from the far right showed Merkel as a famous European politician who finally said what they had always said.

Click to expand...

I think she was well aware about the reaction her words would cause. But as usual, she paid lip service to a maximum of different constituencies ... IIRC, she even said "Islam is a part of Germany" in the very same speech (repeating that famous taboo breaking sentence then interior minister Schäuble said when opening the "Islam Conference") and praised the integration already achieved.

So I guess mere words don't mean much. Merkel is famous for paying lip service to everybody all the time, and never really taking an unpopular stance.

IMO, that's a good thing, though. A sane middle ground, I mean. A lot would be achieved already if we stopped looking at immigration through ideological glasses. Naive leftists have to understand that there *are* problems with immigrants and that pointing that out should not be taboo, while the right-populists have to learn that you don't need German blood to be German, and that not all immigrants are criminal troublemakers or islamists, but that we're an open country that respects human rights.

Grand Mal said:

It's an interesting situation. There's several European countries with highly-industrialized economies and zero-to-negative population growth. A highly-skilled worker from Greece or Turkey or Slovakia or wherever, young and starting a family, might be in a position of being offered immigration incentives.

Click to expand...

Yes, it looks like a win-win situation to me. Especially because I have the impression immigrants from other EU countries are not problematic at all regarding integration.

Rainman05 said:

I really do wish you read the entire article before posting it. It says there that the new agreements Merkel has planned are with European countries. For countries like Spain, Greece and Italy to encourage their unemployed, skilled workers to go to Germany. Why? Because I think Merkel doesn't want Berlin to suffer the same fate as Paris did 7 years ago, London 2 years ago and Stockholm is now.

Click to expand...

It's against forum rules to reproduce entire articles, so I only quoted the first two paras and gave a link, as to invite posters to read further, as I did, tyvm. And skilled workers come from all corners of the world, with many assimilating quite successfully.

paris said:

And skilled workers come from all corners of the world, with many assimilating quite successfully.

Click to expand...

That's exactly what you see here in Germany. There are skilled and ambitious people from Russia, Vietnam, Indonesia, the US, all over the world here in Germany. They are part of the backbone of the German economy, they enrich Germany culturally, and they do not cause problems. The same is true for many immigrants of Turkish background as well. However, many of their parents and grandparents came over from very rural and remote areas as unskilled and uneducated workers in the 60s when they were needed in Germany (e.g. in the mining industry and in construction). They were not the doctors, scientists and engineers from Istanbul. Because of many reasons (one of them being a school system in which success is largely dependent on coming from an educated family), many immigrants in the 2nd and 3rd generation have ended up having trouble to integrate (integration meaning finding a job and becoming a productive member of society).

If there are background-related problems, those have nothing to do with the immigrants not being European, or with their background being Turkish or muslim, but more specifically with a disproportionate number of immigrants coming from very rural and (at the time of leaving) under-developed communities. And with a need for security which strong family bonds and very conservative religious values can give in an environment where one is unsuccessful and sometimes faces prejudice. Let us also remember that apart from the examples of failed integration, there are countless examples of people with a Turkish background who have succeeded in Germany (and who had to work for that more than others).

What Merkel is doing now is encouraging a brain drain from Southern Europe to Germany, and that is a worse assault on those countries than any austerity program. Many of those people will settle in Germany and have families here, and they will be missing when their home countries recover from the economic crisis.

Sanddune said:

What Merkel is doing now is encouraging a brain drain from Southern Europe to Germany, and that is a worse assault on those countries than any austerity program. Many of those people will settle in Germany and have families here, and they will be missing when their home countries recover from the economic crisis.

Click to expand...

I agree with everything you write, except for this last paragraph: I don't think it's that dramatic. The EU already allows free travel, permanent residence and free choice of jobs for member state citizens in any other member state. IMO, it's a win-win when these people come here, as long as their home countries (temporarily) have an unemployment problem, but Germany has jobs to offer. It's not a hassle, all they need is a ID card from a Schengen country -- and there are no hurdles at all for returning eventually. So many will probably and can easily return, once they get better job offers at home.

Germany already has a sizeable Muslim population (4.3 Million - 5.4% of the population), many of which are of Turkish extraction due to Germany's historical close ties with the Turkish Ottoman Empire.

Islam in Germany - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

German guy said:

I agree with everything you write, except for this last paragraph: I don't think it's that dramatic. The EU already allows free travel, permanent residence and free choice of jobs for member state citizens in any other member state. IMO, it's a win-win when these people come here, as long as their home countries (temporarily) have an unemployment problem, but Germany has jobs to offer. It's not a hassle, all they need is a ID card from a Schengen country -- and there are no hurdles at all for returning eventually. So many will probably and can easily return, once they get better job offers at home.

Click to expand...

What I had in the back of my mind was a few conversations I had with B&B hosts on a summer holiday in Ireland. Many of their children left the country for Australia, the US or Britain for work. And they worried whether they would come back to Ireland when the economy recovers (and that the missing qualified people would end up being a problem for Ireland). I think it is possible to say that mass emigration of qualified people can a problem which has serious long-term consequences. Of course people can return, for example, to Spain after a few years of work in Germany. But will they do that if they come to Germany in their mid-20s, marry someone from Germany or somewhere else in the world, and have children going to school? Will they leave Germany once they have made it their home, even though they initially came for economic reasons? Some will, but many won't. Will this affect Spain's economic recovery after the crisis? I believe it will.

I think a better option for Spain would be the concept of "Kurzarbeit", allowing companies to temporarily reduce the workload and payment of the workers. That way Germany kept almost all of its workforce in during the economic crisis a few years ago, and as far as I know, that was the main factor that allowed the German economy to bounce back quickly.

I need to correct one thing though - probably Merkel's initiative won't really cause a brain drain but (if it is successful) direct a large part of the existing brain drain to Germany (instead of, for example, English speaking or Scandinavian countries).

German guy said:

Yes, it looks like a win-win situation to me. Especially because I have the impression immigrants from other EU countries are not problematic at all regarding integration.

Click to expand...

So you brain drain from countries with flat or declining population growth....seems like a massive problem for the EU which Germany has a financial interest in. It's neither sustainable or anything other than punting the problem down the road.

Ben K. said:

So you brain drain from countries with flat or declining population growth....seems like a massive problem for the EU which Germany has a financial interest in. It's neither sustainable or anything other than punting the problem down the road.

Click to expand...

How so?

Those countries have an unemployment problem. Germany has jobs to offer.

So either we chose option A: Germany does not hire people from Spain or Greece, but from outside the EU -- or none at all, reducing Germany's productivity. At the same time, these well educated Greeks and Spanish remain at home, unemployed, straining their domestic social systems.

Or option B: These people from Spain and Greece go to Germany, enjoy a good income and thus have a better life than as unemployed at home, contribute to Germany's growth and contribute to relieving the social systems in Spain and Greece and thus the budget.

Really seems like a no-brainer to me.

As far as I know there is a major piece of legislation imminent. Of course, it will be porked to near death as our fearless leaders add bennies for buddies., a few new tax evasion schemes for a very few people and any other really selfish', wasteful and stupid add-ons that could never pass on their own. The bill will be bi-partisan and both sides will add their extras with consent from the other in trade.

But immigration reform is landing on earth this year.

Cyrylek said:

I certainly hope so. Cutting immigration now is approximately the most idiotic thing we could do, as a society - the 1924 all over again? - not gonna happen.

Click to expand...

specklebang said:

But immigration reform is landing on earth this year.

Click to expand...

Yes, I am cautiously optimistic.

German guy said:

How so?

Those countries have an unemployment problem. Germany has jobs to offer.

So either we chose option A: Germany does not hire people from Spain or Greece, but from outside the EU -- or none at all, reducing Germany's productivity. At the same time, these well educated Greeks and Spanish remain at home, unemployed, straining their domestic social systems.

Or option B: These people from Spain and Greece go to Germany, enjoy a good income and thus have a better life than as unemployed at home, contribute to Germany's growth and contribute to relieving the social systems in Spain and Greece and thus the budget.

Really seems like a no-brainer to me.

Click to expand...

I'd say you are right for the short term effects, but you're underestimating the long-term problems, since the people now emigrating to the north will probably not contribute to the Greek and Spanish social systems.

I think it important to emphasize this particular part of the article.

“We are considered a closed place, a country that is very complicated to get to,” Merkel told delegates, saying that she wants Germany to become “an open country that is very welcoming to skilled workers.”

Click to expand...

This doesn't mean more Turks peddling doner kabobs...