BERLIN (AP) – Germany’s governing parties agreed early Thursday on a broad range of measures to help the country integrate those among the 1.1 million migrants who arrived last year who are granted asylum.
The measures, which will be discussed with state governors before they’re presented to Parliament, seek to strike a balance between giving migrants easier access to jobs and integration courses while also increasing expectations of them.
Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters the proposals make clear that “there are duties and obligations for all who come to us.”
The measures foresee creating thousands of government-funded “job opportunities” for migrants, news agency dpa reported, and the suspension for three years of a rule that asylum-seekers are initially excluded from jobs unless no German or European Union citizen can fill them.
One of the key components to Merkel’s attempts so far to deal with the influx of migrants has been to streamline the system so that those fleeing conflict and persecution and likely to receive asylum will receive it faster, whereas so-called “economic” migrants unlikely to receive asylum will be sent home quickly.