Germany battles to attract skilled immigrants BERLIN: Ibrahim Tchiroma does not have many friends. The 31-year-old software developer from the impoverished West African desert state of Niger has worked in Berlin for nearly a year, but rarely socialises with Germans. Tchiroma is one of the 8,000 holders of Germany's new US-style Green Cards, launched by Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder last year to attract badly-needed computer experts. Since coming to Germany last September, Tchiroma has mainly hung out with other foreigners. Asked if he could consider marrying a local woman and settling here, he laughed and said: "I haven't even spoken to one yet. My German isn't that good." The Green Card scheme marked a break with Germany's past approach that closed the country to immigration, and Berlin wants to widen it to other industry sectors as Europe's biggest economy struggles to cope with the effects of a shrinking population. But the negative reaction from conservative politicians this week to proposals by a government commission for Germany to open its doors to at least 50,000 immigrants a year illustrates the hostility many still feel towards foreigners. Some 7.3 million foreigners live in Germany, but that figure includes many European Union citizens and some two million Turks, many of whom were born here to "guest workers" invited to help rebuild the economy after World War Two but still do not meet Germany's tight citizenship requirements. There was a dramatic increase in the number of foreigners, mostly Turks, taking up citizenship last year, rising to some 187,000, after Schroeder's government overhauled archaic laws that tied German nationality to blood rather than birthplace. RACISM RISING But black faces are still rare on the streets of the German capital and the country has been plagued by a number of brutal racist attacks on Africans in recent years, particularly in the depressed ex-communist east, where few foreigners actually live. The human rights watchdog, the Council of Europe, this week urged Germany to combat what it called the serious problem of a rising tide of anti-Semitic and racist violence in the country. Tchiroma says he has not experienced much racism since arriving in Berlin. He feels safer here than he did in Morocco, where he studied for six years, and Ivory Coast where he worked for two years until scared off by inter-African ethnic clashes and violence which erupted there around elections last year. While less than half the 20,000 available German Green Cards have been taken up in the first year of the scheme, many Germans are already worried that European Union enlargement will bring a flood of cheap workers from the east. Surveys show that two out of three Germans oppose more immigration, and it will be hard for Schroeder to make them think otherwise while the unemployment rate remains stuck at around nine percent. AMERICAN EXAMPLE Holly Cuny, a Green Card-holder from Texas working as a web developer at Europe's second biggest computer maker, Fujitsu Siemens, has a message for those worried about immigration. "My country was built on immigration -- it is the heart and soul of the country," said the 32-year-old, who is descended from Swiss, Scots, Irish and German immigrants to America. "I can't see how immigration can be damaging. Germany has a strong enough culture and identity." While Cuny, who is white, does not have to deal with racism on the street, she sees other problems for Germany's drive to compete for more immigrants. Cuny says gaining a residence permit was not easy as officials in Cologne were not familiar with the Green Card scheme. "It was certainly challenging. I made multiple trips back and forward to the city hall," she said. Nobert Eder, spokesman for the D21 initiative -- an industry group trying to address Germany's shortcomings in information technology which helped develop the Green Card scheme -- says the slow take-up for the new visas is no bad thing. "The Green Card initiative has been a success. It is not just about the numbers but about opening up Germany to attract the best talent and making us more international," he said. Eder says reports of xenophobia certainly do not help, but he thinks Germany's main problem is finding people who speak the language. "We need to make our workplaces more international and encourage the use of English in companies," he said. Germany must also lower its taxes -- top rate paid by even middle-income earners is 48.5 percent -- if it is to attract the top people it wants, the mass circulation Bild newspaper said in an editorial this week. Cuny would tend to agree, saying she will probably stay the five years allowed by her Green Card but no more. "I think I'm in the highest tax bracket. I'm used to paying about half that. There are no special exemptions for me." (Reuters)
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