Immigration Laws: October, 2003 - Number #14

The CDU-led Lower Saxony state government in July 2003 proposed that immigrants receiving welfare and unemployment benefits must learn German at their own expense to the B1-level in 900 hours of classes or face reduced payments; B1-level German means understanding the main parts of a conversation involving work, school, leisure activities and traveling; being able to converse on a range of personal subjects. If approved, some 130,000 foreigners could be affected.

The Netherlands and Austria have introduced language tests for new immigrants.

Germany had 82.5 million residents in 2002, a slight increase due to net immigration of 219,000. Net immigration peaked at 782,000 in 1992, and reached a low of 47,000 in 1997. As a result of naturalizations, the number of Turks in Germany has fallen to 1.9 million, followed by 611,000 Italians.

Germany's federal Constitutional Court overruled a Baden-Wuerttemberg decision and allowed an Afghan-born woman to wear a head scarf while teaching in its public schools. State authorities said that the scarf violates "the strict neutrality of public schools in religious issues." The Constitutional Court in a 5-3 decision noted that Baden-Wuerttemberg had no law outlawing the wearing of scarves, and ruled that Fereshta Ludin must be allowed to teach until the state passed such a law. In a landmark 1995 case, the court overturned a Bavarian law that required crucifixes in public school classrooms, and in this case distinguished the basic rights of people and of buildings.

Germany has a fast-track asylum processing facility at Frankfurt airport that in 2002 handled 882 applications. First decisions are made within two days, and appeals completed within 19 days. In 2002, about 250 applications were rejected and the applicants returned; the others were allowed into Germany to pursue their claims.

The Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, made his first official visit to Germany in September 2003, and heard that the ruling Social Democrat-Green coalition government supported Turkey's entry into the EU, while the opposition CDU-CSU did not.

Labor. Germany's green-card program, launched in August 2000, was extended until the end of 2004, and the 20,000 limit removed. In its first two years, 14,500 non-EU foreigners were issued green cards that allowed them to work in Germany for five years in IT, provided they were offered a job by a German employer and had a university IT degree or were paid at least E51,000 ($58,000) a year. Green-card holders do not earn permanent residence rights, but after working in Germany at least one year, they may receive UI benefits, and about 15 percent were doing so in summer 2003.

About 15 percent of the green cards were issued to foreign graduates of German universities. The SPD-Green government hopes that, before summer 2004, there will be a new immigration law that continues to allow the admission of highly skilled non-EU foreigners. Under a government 2002 proposal that was not enacted, the six now-separate work and residence permits would have been combined into two: a temporary work-and-residence permit, and a permanent work-and-residence permit.

Beginning in mid-2004, Germany will launch a new campaign against Schwarzarbeit--unregistered work, doubling to 5,000 the number of inspectors, and shifting enforcement from Labor to Customs. In 2002, the Labor Department issued 315,000 citations assessing fines of E128 million, and recommended criminal prosecution in 11,300 cases. Germany's underground economy is believed to be about Euro 350 billion a year, or about 16-17 percent of GDP.

Germany is reforming its labor markets. In April 2003, "mini-jobs" that pay less than E400 a month were instituted. They will incur employer payroll taxes of only 25 percent (12 percent for employers of private household help) instead of the usual 42 percent. Three months later, there were six million such jobs, including 930,000 that were created as a result of the reform. Most were second jobs taken by moonlighters.

In September 2003, a new law was enacted that permits firms with up to five employees to hire another five on temporary contracts that do not give the new hires full employment rights. Unemployment insurance, which currently lasts from six to 32 months, depending on work history and family situation, will be reduced to 12 months (18 months for persons 55 and older), after which jobless workers will receive lower social welfare payments. In summer 2003, 1.7 million unemployed workers received UI benefits, and another 2.8 million people got welfare payments, including 800,000 who are considered capable of being employed.

IG Metall, with 2.8 million members, often called the world's largest industrial union, had a leadership crisis in July 2003 because of a failed four-week strike aimed at reducing weekly hours in ex-East Germany from 38 hours to the western norm of 35 a week. The crisis ended with the union's militant deputy leader, Juergen Peters, replacing the current leader. IG Metall represents mostly manufacturing workers, who earned an average $30 an hour in 2001 (compared to $26 in the US) and who received 43 holiday and vacation days a year, compared to 23 in the US. About 25 percent of German workers belong to unions.

Germany's K-12 education system provides schooling for children for four to five hours a day, and assigns a great deal of homework, which stay-at-home mothers were expected to help with in the afternoon. Only six percent of K-12 schools offer all-day programs that include lunch, and the government aims to increase that number with support of some $1 billion a year in federal funds. Once in college, students take an average of seven years to earn a degree, and only a third of the entering students do so, compared to half in most industrial countries.

Mark Landler, "A German Court Accepts Teacher's Head Scarf," New York Times, September 25, 2003. Elizabeth Goetze, "Green Card experiment questioned," FAZ, July 25, 2003. Roger Boyes, "Germany plans a tough language test for migrants," The Times, July 12, 2003.