Door still only half open with German immigration policy

Door still only half open with German immigration policy

Guenther Voss, Berlin, Deutsche Presse Agentur

Harianto Wijaya made headlines across Germany in July 2000.

Amid great fanfare, the 25-year-old Indonesian computer expert
was granted the first-ever so-called Green Card.

Employment Minister Walter Riester, who had been a hesitant
advocate of the innovation, announced Germany was finally ready
to compete on the world market by attracting such specialists.

More than a year later, the balance sheet looks rather
sobering. Since its introduction about 8,600 specialists have,
like Wijaya, received a Green Card, which bestows work and
residency permission for a five- year period.

In early 2000 the computer branch had, however, announced a
much higher short-term need of between 75,000 and 100,000
specialists it said it could not find in Germany.

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder reacted, making the
surprise announcement at the Cebit computer fair in February 2000
that an exception would be made to existing immigration laws to
facilitate the entry of computer specialist.

Schroeder set his employment minister to work on the project
and the Green Card idea, along with a thorny national debate
about the country's immigration laws in general, emerged.

The Green Card was supposed to follow the American example and
provide a relatively nonbureaucratic and speedy entry to those
who were useful to the country's economy.

But with four million unemployed and the country's unions
solidly opposed to Riester's plan and others criticizing it as
too restrictive, a cry of protest rang out as the employment
minister submitted his first draft for a bill changing the
regulations.

Some said the requirements for computer-and communications
specialists were so strict that even Microsoft founder Bill Gates
would have been denied entry.

Only those who could show they had passed university final
exams were to be admitted and that for only three years, with the
possibility of extending their stay for an additional two years.

But political pressure forced a relaxation of these
restrictions, lengthening the permit to a five-year period and
allowing family members to accompany the foreign workers to
Germany.

Another provision allowed the recognition of a company's offer
of an annual income of 100,000 marks (US$45,60) annually as an
alternative application criterium. The number of Green Cards
available was set at 20,000 per year.
The innovation appeared to be popular, with 20,000 people from
all over he world inquiring about it immediately via Internet.

But the expected rush never materialised. Officials even
indicated recently their willingness to eliminate the five-year
residency limit.

Wijaya, who has lived in Germany since 1993, thinks he knows
why officials are considering loosening the restriction. He says
would-be foreign workers are "afraid they will not be accepted in
Germany and afraid that the door to Germany is only half open,"
he told the German magazine Stern.

It is for this reason, he says, that Germany will have
difficulty attracting the 50,000 well-educated and qualified
professionals a specially-appointed commission recently said are
needed.

Wijaya also says work conditions are better in other countries
than in Germany, that they offer more money and lower taxes. An
American company had tempted Wijaya in this way, offering him
$112,500, he said.

"That's hard -- even for German companies, " Wijaya said.