Germany's Migration Policy Is Better Today

20 Aug 2015

Today’s Germany’s migration policy is better than its reputation it would suggest.  It has shown considerable improvement in the last 20 years, eventhough it had suffered few setbacks as well as contradictions along the way. To make the migration policy fit for the future, these improvement are driven by the commitment, rather than there is  need to respond to the changing reality both internally as well as externally .

Germany’s integration into the European union has also positively affected the domestic realities of the integration, by laying the foundation for more effective migration policy concept. Many tend to fail to realize this, but Germany’s attitude to immigration has changed for better because it has been pushed to do so by the EU.

Germany is not an isolated place. We find that,  public migration agenda has been driven by similar factors as elsewhere in Europe. Previously 15 years back, Germany had rejected the idea of being,  nation of immigration, in contrast to UK where the immigration was considered as a key to fuel the economic engine.

Today, it seems that these two nations have switched the places. Sure, presently, Germany’s economy is in much better shape than it was in the year 2000, whereas EU nation’s are struggling.

Since early 1990’s, German migration policy has been a long winded work in progress rather than the sum total of few individual milestone events. In general, this particular trend has moved towards facilitating immigration and immigrant access to the labour markets, strengthening the immigrant rights as well as improving the situation of refuges, while at the same time, it had neglecting issues of citizenship, national narrative beyond Germany ethnicity. This has not been a linear development, this particular process has been time again, interrupted by the repeated setbacks and  it is more akin to two steps forward and one step backward.

As per the recent Migration Policy Index (MIPEX), it  has offered Germany good marks for its policy and it has also it have pointed to improvements which are steady. But honestly speaking, we find large part of this good score has come from successful labour market integration of the immigrants.

Although there has been debate in the past since two decades it has focused more on migrants from North Africa, Turkey and Balkan States, immigration to Germany since early 2000 has stemmed largely due to exercise of freedom of movement within Europe. 

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