Germany as a Destination for Immigrants: How Can Immigration Be Influenced?

According to the OECD, Germany now ranks only second in the world behind the USA in terms of its number of permanent immigrants. What are the economic effects to be expected and how can migration be controlled? Joachim Herrmann, Bavarian State Minister of the Interior for Construction and Traffic, does not consider it appropriate to describe Germany as a destination for immigrants. In his opinion, Germany is one of the world’s most densely populated countries, and only has limited demand for highly-qualified, skilled workers. Moreover, immigration in Germany is largely defined by European Union law. There is no need for national legislation on immigration. Martin Werding, Ruhr-University Bochum, sees demographic change as a central reason why Germany should welcome immigrants. Germany already has a relatively open immigration law, but there is still room for contributions from politicians, who could, for example, draft a law on immigration by non EU citizens. For the various programmes implemented to date are not very widely used due to the rather confusing legal position and ambiguities regarding access to corresponding procedures. Reiner Klingholz, Berlin-Institut für Bevölkerung und Entwicklung, also assumes that Germany needs highly-qualified immigrants in view of demographic developments. Although Germany is benefiting from freedom of workers within the European economic area, immigration from other EU countries will not suffice in the future, and politicians need to make a greater effort to tempt specialist workers from so called third countries to Germany, conceivably according to a points system similar to that used by Canada. They also need to harness the potential of asylum seekers. Christine Langenfeld, Expert Panel of German Foundations for Integration and Migration, would like to see better marketing for Germany as an immigration destination. In her view, a comprehensive reform of German regulations in the field of labour migration policy is not necessary. The path followed to date is heading in the right direction. Herwig Birg, University of Bielefeld, argues in favour of a “strategy of renewal through births”, instead of compensatory immigration.