Germany seizes economic lifeline immigrants offer

By Anthony Faiola, Published The Straits Times, 29 Jul 2014

AN UNEMPLOYED architect back in Barcelona, Mr Jordi Colombi weighed his options and decided to start a new life. Armed with two suitcases and a Spanish-omelette recipe to feed his homesickness, he arrived two months ago in the land of opportunity.

Germany.

In the United States, the immigration debate is toxic and paralysed. Political parties raging against foreigners are surging at the polls in Britain and France.

But in Germany, the government is rolling out a red carpet by simplifying immigration procedures, funding free language classes, even opening "welcome centres" for newcomers seeking a piece of the German dream.

In the rankings of the globe's most prosperous countries, this economic powerhouse of 82 million has now leapfrogged Canada, Britain, Italy and Spain to become the largest destination for immigrants after the US, according to the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Because of a low birth rate, the population is shrinking, raising the pivotal question of who will keep the massive German economy humming in the years ahead.

Yet even as insular nations facing similar plight, such as Japan, continue to resist importing workers, Germany is counting on immigrants such as Mr Colombi.

In a nation which former chancellor Helmut Kohl once famously declared "is not an immigrant country", the 36-year-old Spaniard is part of what is fast becoming a global experiment in the immigration debate.

His place of employment, a construction site near the northern fringes of the fast-globalising city of Berlin, is a symbol of the welcoming society at work. English is the lingua franca at the site, a Tower of Babel studded with Hebrew-speaking managers from Israel, Bulgarian demolition crews, German bricklayers and African day labourers.

"My life has totally changed in the two months since I arrived," said Mr Colombi, a thin, pale ghost of a man with a Van Gogh beard. "I have a job, an apartment, a new life. I still don't like the food or the weather, but this is now my home."

Germany has gone through waves of immigration before, particularly in the 1960s and 1970s when great numbers of Turkish guest workers helped provide the backbone of its Cold War-era economy. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, ethnic Germans poured back into the country, mostly from points east.

But the latest upsurge is largely based on Germany's re-emergence as Europe's undisputed economic leader, a beacon of light on a continent still suffering the aftermath of a brutal debt crisis.

In the 28-nation European Union, free movement of labour means nationals can easily relocate from one country to the next. And with unemployment at 25.1 per cent in Spain, 26.6 per cent in Greece, and 12.6 per cent in Italy, Germany - with an economy built on industrial giants such as Siemens and an army of innovative small and mid-size companies - has never looked so good.

But Germany also is looking beyond Europe for prospective workers, its factories are courting Indian engineers, and its universities competing for Chinese students. In 2012, Germany simplified the process for immigrants from outside the EU. Last year, it introduced a "Blue Card" system, effectively granting entry to anyone with a university degree and a job offer with a minimum annual salary of US$50,000 to US$64,000 (S$62,000 to S$79,500), depending on the field. As a result, the average immigrant to Germany is better educated and more skilled than the average German.

Germany also is reaching out to the jobless. Last year, the government launched a special programme aimed at unemployed Europeans aged 18 to 35, covering their travel, language courses and living costs while offering them vocational training. But interest in the US$609 million programme proved so overwhelming the German government had to cease taking new applicants in April.

Chancellor Angela Merkel told economic leaders late last year that "Germany today is a country that is indeed very open to immigration".

"It is really rare anywhere to see the kind of burst in immigration we're seeing in Germany," said the OECD's senior migration specialist Thomas Liebig. "It's being driven by free mobility within Europe, but this is also because the German government has taken steps to modernise, and liberalise, immigration laws."

The number of immigrants is expected to taper off as other European countries begin to recover.

Yet the sheer size of the recent wave - about 400,000 immigrants arrived in 2012, up 38 per cent compared with the previous year - is already testing the limits of Germany's welcome mat.

In the struggling coal town of Dortmund, an apparent backlash against foreigners led to the election to the city council last month of a far-right politician who campaigned on the slogan: "Germany for Germans."

Also, a report last month from Germany's Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution registered 473 physical assaults motivated by xenophobia last year, up 20 per cent from a year earlier.

And many Germans still call the lack of assimilation among Turkish immigrants - including their second- and third-generation children and grandchildren - a leading national problem.

But anti-immigrant and far- right parties have gained nowhere near as much traction in Germany as they have in countries elsewhere in Europe. Observers call it partly a product of World War II-era guilt, a sense that Germans owe their neighbours a share of their newfound prosperity.

But it also is an invention of German pragmatism. The ageing population is shrinking, with the 2011 census showing a loss of about 1.5 million people since the 1980s. As the decline accelerates, by 2030 the government predicts a hole as big as 2.3 million workers in the German labour force.

Whether they like it or not, "Germans know they need immigrants", said Mr Reiner Klingholz, managing director of the Berlin Institute for Population and Development.

WASHINGTON POST