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efms Migration Report
July 2008 |  | | | |
 EU: Agreement on general principles for
immigration pact Following an initiative of France,
which has taken on the EU Council Presidency on 1 July 2008, the 27 European Ministers for
the Interior and Justice agreed on 7 July 2008 in Cannes on general principles for an
"immigration and asylum pact". This pact is expected to serve as a tool to
reorganise immigration to Europe by means of controlling legal migration and fighting
irregular migration. In future, legal immigration is to be aligned with and adapted to the
requirements of the labour markets and the reception capacities of the social systems of the
EU Member States. The aim is to establish a so-called "circular migration"
according to which immigrants return after some years in the EU to their home countries with
the opportunity to re-enter the EU later again. Along with the so-called Return Directive,
which was adopted by the European Parliament in June already, common standards
governing the return procedures for irregular immigrants have been defined on the one hand.
At the same time, not officially authorised immigration is to be limited by a better
surveillance of the external borders and a stricter deportation practice. Following
controversial debates, a passage was deleted from the document that provided for the
prohibition of mass legalisations which are considered to have a "magnetic
attraction" for illegal migrants. Nonetheless, there would be no mass legalisations in
future as the Ministers are agreed that this would not be the right approach, said Federal
Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU). The pact is to be adopted already in
October of this year.
www.europolitan.de 22.07.08 // Handelsblatt 24.07.08
EU will not accept refugee quotas from Iraq for the time being The EU Interior Ministers have
followed a proposal of the German Federal Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble
(CDU) and decided not to accept refugee quotas from Iraq for the time being. Before a
decision to the contrary, it had to be evaluated until September if persecuted Iraqis could also
return to their home country instead. During his visit to Germany in July, the Iraqi Prime
Minister Nuri al-Maliki appealed to Germany not to accept Iraqi refugees for the time being
and argued that the security situation had improved in his country and that it needed qualified
citizens to reconstruct the country. The decision of the Interior Ministers has been criticised
by refugee relief organisations and politicians. Sebastian Edathy (SPD) reproached
Schäuble for having made a political turnaround because of national policy reasons
after he initially had opted for a Europe-wide reception of Iraqis and added that the hope that
a huge number of the 2.5 million displaced persons could return to Iraq shortly would be
completely unrealistic. Also the refugee relief organisation of the United Nations (UNHCR)
said that thousands of Iraqi nationals would still flee to the neighbouring countries, which
meanwhile would be overstrained.
SZ 23.07.08 // FAZ 27.07.08 // FR 28.07.08
European Court of Justice strengthens rights of third-country nationals
On 25 July 2008, the
European Court of Justice (ECJ) has extended the freedom of movement of persons from
non-EU countries who are married with a citizen of the European Union. In future,
third-country nationals, who have not stayed legally in a country before, will be allowed to
freely move and settle inside the EU together with his or her spouse. By taking this decision,
the ECJ declared an Irish act as incompatible with EU law. The Irish act had foreseen that a
third-country national, who is a family member of an EU citizen, may only stay or move to
Ireland with him or her if the third-country national had stayed already before legally in
another Member State.
Press
release of ECJ of 25.07.08 // FR 26.07.08
Federal government adopts action programme to facilitate the immigration of
qualified workers On 16 July 2008, the Federal government has adopted the
"Aktionsprogramm der Bundesregierung - Beitrag der Arbeitmigration zur Sicherung
der Fachkräftebasis in Deutschland" (action programme of the Federal
Government - the contribution of labour migration to securing the availability of qualified
workers in Germany), which was prepared by Federal Interior Minister, Wolfgang
Schäuble (CDU), and the Federal Minister of Labour, Olaf Scholz (SPD). From 1
January 2009, the so-called preference clause for academics from the new EU Member States
will no longer be applied, which had to be used so far to prove that a job vacancy could not
be filled with a national candidate. For highly qualified workers from third-countries, the
labour market will be opened as well; however, their employment will also in future be
subject to the preference clause. Moreover, the minimum salary highly-qualified persons have
to earn annually will be reduced from 86,400 to 63,600 euros. Immigrants gaining such salary
will be directly granted a permanent right of residence. For workers employed in the
low-wage sector, the labour market will remain closed: The so-called transitional provision
which will expire in April 2009, by which the immigration of workers from the new EU
Member States to Germany was limited, will be renewed for the last time by another two
years (until 2011). Trade and employers" associations as well as the FDP and the Green party
criticised the action programme as being discouraged and insufficient and added that with
such programme Germany would limp behind the development on international level.
Schäuble and Scholz refused the critics and said the action programme would be a
good tool in the world-wide competition for the best minds.
Reuters online 15.07.08 // Press release of Federal Ministry of the
Interior (BMI) 16.07.08 // Informationsdienst der Wissenschaft 16.07.08 // FR 17.07.08 // Die
Welt online 20.07.08 // Focus 28.07.08
State of health of children and youths with migration background
insufficient The
findings of different studies have revealed that the state of health of children and youths from
immigrant families is often worse compared to German children. Research reports of the
Robert-Koch Institute (RKI) in Berlin and the findings drawn from the evaluation of the
Kinder- und Jugendgesundheitssurveys (German Health Interview and Examination Survey
for Children and Adolescents - KiGGS) have revealed for example that migrant children and
adolescents suffer more often from tuberculosis than Germans of the same age. In addition,
they are more often overweight or suffer from obesity, get injured more frequently in
accidents at home, partly show lower vaccination quota and have a worse oral health. In
contrast, children and adolescents with a migration background are less frequently affected by
chronic diseases such as asthma, neurodermatitis and hay fever. According to the RKI, these
differences can be attributed to a number of reasons: Migrants belonged more often than
average to socially disadvantaged groups and suffered from psycho-social stress due to the
separation from their families or because of xenophobia. But also differences in the way of
life, different nutritional habits and social values were reasons for the proportionally worse
state of health of migrant children and adolescents. The overweight of children, for example,
would be considered by some migrant groups as a sign of a particularly good state of health.
FAZ 23.07.08
DGB critically evaluates the preliminary outcomes of the National Integration
Plan On 15 July
2008, the German Association of Trade Unions (DGB) criticised in Berlin the insufficient
implementation of the objectives defined in the National Integration Plan. Annelie
Buntenbauch, member of the DGB"s executive board, said that the National Integration Plan,
which had been adopted in June 2007 by the Federal Government and which contains a total
of 400 voluntary commitments on federal, state and municipal
level for a better integration of persons with a migration background in Germany, has not
marked the expected historical change towards an immigration society. She particularly
criticised that the legal and political framework conditions had been excluded from the
National Integration Plan. Marianne Demmer, member of the executive board of the Union of
Persons Employed in Education and Science (GEW), said even though the National
Integration Plan had put in motion the civil society, there would be a lack of commitment by
the authorities. While the people tried hard, politics would just sit around and twiddle the
thumbs, said Demmer.
Press
release of DGB 15.07.08 // Junge Welt online 16.07.08
Muslim Coordination Council hardly capable of acting One year after its foundation, the
Muslim Coordination Council (KRM), which serves as umbrella organisation for four large
Islamic associations in Germany, seems to have achieved only a few of its objectives. So far,
no KRM association on federal state-level has been founded even though the application for
the official recognition as religious community should have been filed only a few months
after the KRM had taken up its work. Such foundation, however, is the most important
prerequisite for applying for an official recognition. Therefore, the contact organisations on
federal state-level are still associations on local level. The heterogeneous composition of the
KRM is generally considered to bear problems. The four associations are highly different in
terms of their political and religious orientations. Moreover, KRM"s claim of being a
representative association is being questioned even by Muslims: Both the Alevits living in
Germany and Muslim who are less religious do not feel represented by the KRM.
KNA 23.07.08
Cabinet adopts introduction of electronic personal ID On 23 July 2008, the Federal Cabinet has decided to issue from 2010
onwards electronic personal identity cards instead of the identity cards used so far. The new
ID format is expected to offer more security against forgery and to facilitate purchases
through the internet. The new ID is equipped with an integrated chip that contains personal
data such as name, age, address and a photo. Due to corresponding demands of the SPD
party, the storage of finger prints will be optional. While the authorities are given unrestricted
access to the data, it will be up to the citizens" discretion whether or not they agree to an
exchange of the data when privately using the new electronic ID at a shop, for example. The
opposition parties warned of a storage of finger prints. Claudia Roth, member of the Green
party, said that there would the risk that unauthorised persons used the data secretly.
Moreover, there would be other data protection standards abroad where the personal data
could be read as well.
Press release
of the Federal Ministry of the Interior 23.07.08 // SZ 22.07.08 // Die Welt
24.07.08
North Rhine-Westphalia: Naturalised persons acquire university entrance
qualification more often than Germans Naturalised
youths acquire more often the German "Abitur" (university entrance
qualification) than youths without migration background. This is the finding of the current
Integration Report published by the Government of the federal state of North
Rhine-Westphalia. According to the report, 30 per cent of the naturalised persons acquired a
university entrance qualification in 2006 compared to only 27 per cent of the German youths.
As regards the school-leaving certificates, the new citizens were taken into account separately
in order to avoid the distorting differentiation between Germans and foreigners, said Armin
Laschet (CDU), Integration Minister of the North Rhine-Westphalia. If every successful
immigrant was registered only as regular German upon his or her naturalisation, success
stories would be overseen, said Laschet. He made a call to the Federal Government to register
the performance of migrants in future by means of special evaluation counts.
Der Spiegel 28.07.08 // FR
29.07.08
Lower Saxony: Plans for training of Imams at universities The federal state of Lower Saxony
plans to set-up a course for the training of Muslim clergymen at the University of
Osnabrück. Lower Saxony"s Interior Minister Uwe Schünemann (CDU) said that
the training of Imams at German universities would positively contribute to integration and
improve the acceptance of Islam, said Schünemann. A study of the Duisburg-based
social scientist Rauf Ceylan titled "Imame in Deutschland" (Imams in Germany)
seems to substantiate the need for training offers for Imams. The study findings revealed that
the clergymen send to Germany from abroad - in their majority from Turkey - would usually
be prepared insufficiently for their work and therefore contributed little to the integration of
Muslims in Germany. A problem would be, for instance, that only one fifth of the clergymen
had passed scientific training and that for the lay preachers particularly the correct citation
would be at the fore. Therefore, they were susceptible for a superficial interpretation of the
Koran. Moreover, many of the Imams (20 per cent) belonged to fundamentalist-conservative
schools.
BZ 25.07.08 // NZ
30.06.08
Berlin: Muslims plan project against forced marriages An initiative of three Islamic
organisations in Berlin plans a project titled "Aktionsbündnis
Zwangsehen" (action committee against forced marriages) which follows the Dutch
initiative "hand in hand against forced marriages". The aim is to prevent forced
marriages in the Muslim community by providing information. The message that forced
marriages are forbidden in Islam is to be communicated into the Muslim community by
organising seminars and meetings. The Islam critics Necla Kelek welcomed that Muslims and
Islamic associations admitted that forced marriages constituted a problem within the Muslim
societies. However, she also considers this plan as an attempt to "catch and advise in
Muslim way" Muslim girls who have become more self-confident in order to prevent
them from contacting official centres and from turning away from Islam.
taz 17.07.08 // FAZ online
29.07.08
Asylum statistics In July 2008, a total of
1,793 persons has submitted a petition for political asylum in Germany, which is an increase
of 7.2 per cent (+121 persons) over the month before. Compared to July 2007, the number of
asylum applicants has increased by 20.9 per cent (+310 persons). In July, the main countries
of origin were Iraq (553), Turkey (89), Kosovo (85) and Vietnam (80) followed by Syria (71).
In this month, the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees decided on the asylum
applications of 1,745 persons. A total of 30 persons (1.7 per cent) was recognised as being
entitled to political asylum whereas 578 persons (33.1 per cent) were granted protection
against deportation according to § 60, paragraph 1 of the Residence Act. The
applications of 545 persons (31.2 per cent) were rejected. The cases of a further 541 persons
(31 per cent) have been closed for other reasons (e.g. due to suspensions of asylum
procedures because persons have withdrawn their applications).
July
2008 | | | | |
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