• Home /
• Statewatch Database /
• Germany: New law for immigrants

Germany: New law for immigrants

01 January 2000

It has long been recognised that the blood principle (Jus sanguinis), which has always underlined Germany's interpretation of citizenship, can lead to disparate definitions of immigrants. Since Germany embarked on the repatriation of eastern European and Russian citizens with German ancestry politicians have increasingly found problems with their eastern European relatives. The policy towards this group of immigrants, which up to now has been treated with considerably more financial generosity than their "non-German" counterparts, is to change.

In future, under the new government Aussiedlerprogramm 2000 (Exiles programme 2000) the yearly quota of "German immigrants" will be reduced to 100,000 and "integration work" will be the focus. The programme has cost 74m DM (?24.6 million) in the last two years. This immigrant community, like all immigrant communities in Germany, is still marked by high unemployment, a low level of German language knowledge, social deprivation and related crime rates - the budget for the year 2000 has been increased to 45m DM (?15 million).

It is the first time that the Interior Ministry (BMI) has made a concerted effort to implement a functioning support network for (some) immigrants, giving them the right to German language courses and the support of a plethora of governmental and non-governmental institutions. "From now on," the journal Migration und Bevolkerung notes, "instead of mass projects, specifically directed help measures are going to be supported in order to remove the present disadvantages of German minorities and to improve the relations between the minority and the majority".

For a summary of the government report see pp.1-2 in Migration und Bevoelkerung, no.8/99, Bevoelkerungswissenschaft, Humboldt-Universitaet Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin, Tel: 0049(0)30-20931918, Fax: 0049(0)30-20931432,e-mail:MuB@sowi.hu-berlin.de, link or order the report "Aussiedlerpolitik 2000: Integration in Deutschland - Hilfen in den Herkunftslaendern" directly via Deutsche Vertriebsgesellschaft, Postfach 1149, 53333 Meckenheim, Tel: 0049(0)22251-926-0, Fax: 0049(0)22251-926-118.