The decision announced last week, as reported by the German Embassy in Kyiv, was actually made by the German government on July 9. But the announcement was not late - after all, the program was originally planned to be completed on July 31, 2003.
The new decree lifts the quantitative restriction on attracting foreign programmers. Previously, their number was limited to 20,000 people. True, the visa application procedure for those wishing to obtain a green card has not changed.
The idea of granting green cards to highly qualified IT specialists was put forward by German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder at the end of February 2000 during a visit to the CeBit computer fair and sparked a fierce political debate at the time. The topic even became one of the election issues during the election campaign in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The leader of the conservative opposition in the state government came up with a seemingly almost Nazi slogan 'Kinder statt Inder', which in German means 'Children instead of Indians'. In fact, it only meant the following: instead of importing Indian specialists, it would be better to teach computer literacy to the younger generation of their own.
Some politicians frightened Germans with negative consequences for the German labor market that, in their opinion, the introduction of the green card could entail. Despite all these objections, already in August of the same year, the German Bundestag passed a law that established the very quota of 20,000 IT specialists who could apply for a German green card within three years and, having received it, work in Germany in the high-tech sector for five years.
On July 31 of this year, the three-year 'window' to Germany was supposed to close, but the government unexpectedly decided to keep it open for another year. As Gazeta.Ru was told at the German Embassy in Moscow, the government had good reasons for such a step. The fact is that the quota of 20,000, contrary to optimistic forecasts, was never filled - only 14,500 'green cards' have been issued to date.
Experts give the following explanation for this immigration failure. 'When the Green Card for programmers was just starting, it was not without reason that the bulk of arriving IT specialists were expected to be Indians,' said Alexander Ryats, who holds a master's degree from the Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg. 'India has one of the largest potentials in the high-tech industry. However, the influx of Indian specialists to Germany turned out to be much smaller than expected.'
The Germans believe that the Indians did not come, although they turned out to be the majority among those who arrived - 22%. Russia, Ukraine and the Baltic states accounted for 14% of specialists, Romania - 8%.
According to the expert, Germany is an important country for Indians, however, due to language problems and traditional political orientation, Indians prefer to go to the USA and England rather than to Germany. 'It is also possible that Indians did not come here because of the hostile attitude of some Germans towards foreigners, huge taxes, or the overly bureaucratic procedure for entering Germany,' Ryats continues. 'We should not forget about the pan-European crisis in the hi-tech industry either. I know cases where people who managed to work in Germany for only a couple of years were laid off and had to leave home ahead of schedule.'
For example, in Bavaria, where many high-tech firms are concentrated, according to the Federal Labor Office, about 7% of foreign programmers are unemployed. In general, in Germany, every fifth of them has been unemployed at least once during the first year of their stay in the country.
Despite the obvious failure of the undertaking, the German government speaks of the importance of extending the Green Card program. According to government spokesman Bela Anda, 'taking into account the great economic importance of the computer industries, the extension was expedient. The success of the Green Card is beyond doubt, including, for example, because thanks to every specialist who comes to Germany, at least two more jobs are created for German wage earners.'
Meanwhile, the need for the Green Card itself could have long since disappeared if a new immigration law had come into effect in Germany, the adoption of which was delayed due to procedural confusion in the Constitutional Court.
By the way, Germany today also has a serious shortage of qualified workers in the catering industry, the tourism industry, and clinics complain about a shortage of medical staff and doctors. These industries also asked
the government to introduce a Green Card, but officials did not meet them halfway.