On the second Friday of May, the ill-fated law on foreigners (Zuwanderungsgesetz) was passed by a majority vote in the German parliament. The CDU/CSU voted against and immediately promised to block it in the Bundesrat; the liberals abstained. Interior Minister Otto Schily in vain called on the opposition to compromise and accused it of totally distorting immigration policy. The Greens supported their coalition partners: the opposition, they said, wants not to manage immigration processes but to stop them altogether. The opposition, for its part, demands substantial and numerous changes to the draft law. The contentious points include, in particular, the reduction of the quota for the admission of foreigners and the reunification of families. The Christian Democrats say they are aware of the need to regulate immigration processes, in particular labor immigration, but demand a clear and sensible immigration and integration policy – which, in their view, the Social Democrats lack.
It is not without reason that the CDU/CSU coalition has begun to discuss the draft law anew, although, it would seem, it is a bit late to wave one's fists after the fight. But no: on the Monday before last, at a conference in Bremen, the interior ministers of those states where Christian Democrats are in power gathered. The question of whether the law will be adopted or not will be decided in the Bundesrat, where the Christian Democrats have a majority, and therefore they can easily reject the law, which everyone expects. So the readiness of the state ministers to discuss is a positive sign. However, they took a different path. Instead of seeking a compromise on the existing version (here, for example, the Lower Saxony minister Uwe Schünemann sees no chances at all), a completely new law is being proposed, which is even called by a different name – Integrationsgesetz – and supposedly follows the Dutch integration model. It is expected that the draft integration law should go to the Bundestag for debate before September of this year. The thing is that a compromise on adopting the SPD version of the law could have been reached in a joint committee of the Bundestag and the Bundesrat. So the Christian Democrats are in a hurry to present their version before the committee even starts work. Moreover, in September the elections to the Bavarian Landtag will begin, so that the new law on foreigners – or integration law – could once again become a weapon in the election battle.
The SPD, for its part, wants to push through its law as quickly as possible and start the debate in the Bundesrat on May 23. How that will end is already clear. However, as Bavaria’s Interior Minister Günther Beckstein believes, if the ill-fated law on foreigners is not adopted at all, it will not be a great loss. Only he did not specify for whom – for Beckstein or for Germany.