Some particularly zealous activists of this unrecognized movement manage, according to the Federal Criminal Police Office, to invite up to one hundred fifty people a year. Moreover, these include not only friends and acquaintances from abroad but mostly complete strangers who have never met their hospitable hosts. One can only wonder why such statistics are kept not by some committees for improving Germany's image in the world, but by the police. Probably, employees of the German competent authorities do not love their country and do not want the world to hear about 'famous German hospitality.'
But let's set irony aside. It is absolutely clear that we are not talking about Germans who are happy to have guests, and their visitors are hardly among tourists admiring German sights. The German Federal Ministry of the Interior plans to create in the near future a separate database that will record residents of the country who issue guest invitations too often: they are automatically suspected of aiding illegal immigration, attempting to use 'black' labor, and worse crimes such as supplying drugs and 'live goods' to Germany. Germans who send out a suspiciously large number of guest invitations will be 'on the hook': they themselves will be thoroughly checked, and their invitations may simply be thrown into the trash.
German Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries long resisted the idea of her colleague, Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble. In the end, she said, no German law specifies exactly how many invitations a particular resident can issue. Creating such a database would automatically mean that an ordinary German citizen who invites a foreigner would immediately fall under police suspicion – just like that, just in case.
The draft law, which they plan to submit to the Bundestag, applies not only to individuals but also to enterprises and organizations that invite businessmen, athletes, artists, youth groups – say, from Eastern Europe or Africa. For example, if some sports club invites a team from Zimbabwe, it's 'under the hood.' If a company organizes a training seminar for its Russian colleagues, Wolfgang Schäuble's staff 'takes note.'
Nevertheless, the justice minister eventually withdrew her objections. Schäuble apparently managed to convince her that such data would, firstly, be reliably protected, and secondly, used only for their intended purpose. It would be much worse if information about such inviters continued to be stored in the Central Register of the Office for Foreigners – the data protection standards there are far from ideal. If the law is passed, all files will be consolidated into one system, access to which will be available to employees of German embassies, as well as the police and the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (the official name of German counterintelligence).
This system will consist of two independent parts. One will contain information about all organizations and individuals who invite foreigners, the other will contain data on those who have already been convicted of fraud involving foreigners. Employees of German consulates will automatically receive warnings from this system if the inviter is on the second list. The decision to issue a visa is always made at the embassy, so for a diplomatic mission official, this information may be grounds for refusing entry to Germany.
This is the main problem: no one has yet determined where the threshold lies beyond which a hospitable German turns into a suspect. How many invitations can a citizen or organization issue before finally falling under the 'hood' of the competent authorities? Some experts, for instance, believe that a resident of Germany who has invited five foreigners over two years can already be considered a 'multi-tasker.' But if we follow this logic, then an organization that invites, say, a folk choir of 30 people is already a real mafia or, God forbid, a terrorist cell!
The justice minister denies that the count will be done that way: in her opinion, there is no need to complicate life for musical groups and sports clubs. Moreover, Brigitte Zypries intends to add a provision to the draft law that an organization that invites frequently and in large numbers but does not cause problems for the police should in the future receive a 'green corridor' from the embassies – invitations from it will be processed earlier and with less bias.
Boris ALTNER.
IA Rosbalt