Germany can’t afford to turn its back on migrants

Germany became a magnet for those escaping conflict over the past decade. Now it needs to become a beacon for highly skilled professionals. Increasing public discomfort with immigration and the rise of the far-right could prevent the country rising to the challenge.

The nation’s future prosperity depends on attracting millions of economic migrants to fill gaps left by retiring baby boomers. But the domestic mood is grim following a spate of violent crimes allegedly perpetrated by foreigners. Last week, three people were killed and eight injured in a knife attack; the suspect was a Syrian asylum seeker and member of the Islamic State. 

Public alarm could help propel the far-right Alternative for Germany to first place in regional elections in eastern Germany ..

Social Democrat Chancellor Olaf Scholz wants to accelerate deportations of those who don’t qualify to stay in Germany while encouraging skilled migration. But this balancing act is looking increasingly tricky.

Alice Weidel, the co-leader of the AfD, has called for a moratorium of at least five years on further immigration, while the leader of the opposition conservatives Friedrich Merz has urged the unpopular coalition government to stop accepting refugees from Afghanistan and Syria, and to reverse policies that made getting German citizenship easier.

It’s a far cry from the optimism shown in 2015 when former Christian Democrat Chancellor Angela Merkel famously declared “Wir schaffen das” (“We’ll manage this”) in response to around 900,000 asylum seekers showing up on Germany’s doorstep, mainly from Syria. They’ve since been joined by more than 1 million Ukrainian refugees, making Germany the fourth-biggest refugee host globally.

The country has made laudable efforts to integrate new arrivals, but it’s paid a big price for its humanitarianism: No other country’s citizens want their government to focus on reducing immigration more than Germany’s, which they now consider more important than fighting poverty, according to an international survey published in May. 

Even Joachim Gauck, a former pastor and German president during that tumultuous 2015-2016 period, has urged his country to adopter stricter asylum rules to keep fringe political parties at bay.

The government has a duty to protect its citizens, but Germany can’t afford to halt all migration. Deprived of cheap Russian gas and amid waning Chinese demand for its capital goods, the country has gone from powerhouse of the euro zone to laggard: The economy is expected to stagnate for a second year.

Potential economic growth has been estimated at just 0.4% a year for the remainder of the decade because productivity gains have slowed and the large baby-boomer generation is poised to retire. While the government is trying to make work more appealing — cutting taxes for overtime and offering financial incentives to delay retirement, for example — these efforts won’t suffice. UBS Group AG economists forecast Germany’s working age population will shrink by 8 million, or 0.6% per year, by 2050.

This will put increasing pressure on the budget as Germany has a pay-as-you-go pension system whereby current employees finance the incomes of today’s retirees. “Greater immigration could be a powerful force to counter these factors. However, prospects for this are uncertain,” notes the International Monetary Fund.

Source : https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/nri/migrate/germany-cant-afford-to-turn-its-back-on-migrants/articleshow/112884950.cms