Germany may refine immigration legislation

ahmedabad: the focus is on germany''simmigration policy again. germany had started a positive wave of immigrationthat was motivated by economic demands, but after the attacks on america, theperception of immigration has began changing among the people. today, it is upto brandenburg''s political leaders - premier manfred stolpe of the socialdemocratic party, and jvrg schvnbohm of the christian democratic union - todecide whether to cast the deciding votes in the bundestat, the legislative bodythat represents the states at the national level, in favour of the federalgovernment''s immigration proposal once it is finally pieced together. thechristian democrats have said that they would not attend talks that are designedto refine legislation to create germany''s first system of regulated immigration.the chances of a consensus between the coalition and opposition in the germanparliament have sunk to virtually zero for the moment, informs a german daily.the union parties have set hurdles in achieving a consensus in previouscross-party talks. for example, for the dropping of proposed compulsory languagetests for non-german family members of future ethnic german immigrants unlesscourses were available nation-wide in their country of origin. the demands madeby opposition politicians like saarland premier peter miller, who headed thechristian democratic union''s commission on immigration policy have become thepoint of debate. they demand reduction in the maximum age at which the childrenof immigrants resident in germany may join their parents, adding morerestrictive labour-migration rules, placing greater emphasis on the proposed lawon restricting immigration, and dropping the proposal to recognise non-state andgender-specific persecution as grounds for fleeing one''s country. for months,the government has signalled willingness to compromise on these central points,however, it has not done it on paper. given the demands coming from all sides,with even the party of democratic socialism, successor to the east germancommunist party, placing a few obstacles in its way, the government may reckonthat hardly any new or different areas of compromise can be suggested other thanthe existing scope for negotiations on these four points. the general feelingamong politicians is that security threats following the september 11 terrorattacks and the rise in unemployment have displaced immigration as an issue, orat least altered people''s perception of it. the union parties'' parliamentaryleader, friedrich merz, has said that the immigration of qualified labour was asignificant political problem that needed to be solved. the present immigrationminister schily himself has been trying to placate union parties'' demands toabandon the planned points-system for immigration by assuring them that,although he planned to include it in the new law, the government may notimplement it next year.