Germany plans contract for immigrants

BERLIN, Nov. 24 (UPI) -- Germany plans to have immigrants sign "integration contracts" that would oblige them to respect Western values.

Foreigners seeking to live in the country would vow with their signatures to respect basic Western values such as freedom of speech or equal rights for women.

Immigration Commissioner Maria Boehmer proposed the plan and said immigrants would get "help and support" from authorities in return.

"Anyone who wants to live here for a long time and who wants to work has to say 'Yes' to our country," she told the Stuttgarter Nachrichten newspaper. "And for that we need a commonly accepted set of values."

"These include a good knowledge of the German language, but also a readiness to take part in society," she added.

The media has given the proposal mixed reviews. While the Berlin-based Tagesspiegel newspaper said it could be a "step forward if politicians take it seriously," the daily Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung called it a "paper of helplessness."

Boehmer also said she wants to lure more highly qualified immigrants into Germany, but added that the potential of immigrants already living in the country needed to be better harnessed.

"For that, we need good language teaching, schooling and a better recognition of qualifications gained abroad," she said.

Integration has long been a hot potato issue here in Germany. Earlier this year, a former Berlin finance minister in an interview harshly criticized the foreign-born population.

"I don't need to respect anyone who lives off the state, denies the state, doesn't do anything to educate their kids, and just produces more headscarf girls," Thilo Sarrazin told the magazine Lettre International in September. "That goes for 70 percent of the Turkish population and 90 percent of the Arab population in Berlin."

While admitting that parallel societies exist in Berlin, she added that it's the positive integration examples that should be pushed.

"As an important part of the debate on poor school performance, there also needs to be discussion about those who are doing their school-leaving exams; who go on to study, start companies, are engineers or doctors or lawyers," she said.

Some 15 million people with an immigration background live in Germany, a country of more than 80 million.

The German government has launched several summits on intercultural dialogue and integration, but the discussion about successful integration remains one with too many unknowns.