German immigration bill clears first hurdle

The bill was passed 321 to 225 with 41 abstentions

Germany's lower house of parliament has approved a controversial immigration bill, after a fractious debate on Friday morning.

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's coalition of Social Democrats and Greens, said their bill was aimed at using foreign workers to fill Germany's urgent skills shortages, while at the same time controlling the flow of immigration.

But the conservative opposition put up fierce objections to the bill, saying immigration is inappropriate when more than 4 million Germans are currently jobless.

The bill will now go to the upper house, the Bundesrat, for a vote on 22 March. The Red-Green coalition government does not have a majority in the upper chamber.

Concessions

Mr Schroeder said the bill struck a "careful balance" between the country's economic needs and its humanitarian duties.

But the opposition Christian Democrats condemned the proposals on both economic and cultural grounds.

Chancellor Schroeder said the bill struck the right balance

"Such a law opens the way for still higher immigration into the labour market - with 4.3m jobless that's completely the wrong signal at this point," said their parliamentary leader, Friedrich Merz.

"[The proposals] set the course to transform Germany into a multicultural country of immigration - that won't be done with us," said Michael Glos, a close advisor to the conservatives' election candidate, Edmund Stoiber.

The coalition offered some concessions to the opposition, including a measure to cap the age up to which the children of immigrants are allowed to join their families.

The opposition had demanded that 10 should be the upper age limit, but 12-years-old was the lowest that the coalition was willing to go.

Industry interests

The BBC's Rob Broomby in Berlin says that political horse-trading to try to push the bill through the upper house is already under way.

He says the government had hoped that immigration would be off the agenda for September's general elections, but that Friday's debate makes that look unlikely.

Industry leaders had pleaded for a political truce in order to push through the reforms.

"We need [foreigners] to close our skills gaps and for demographic reasons," the president of the Federation for German Industry told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

Others said that foreigners created new jobs, rather than taking them away.