Germany not to ease visa rules for specialists

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has rejected proposals by two cabinet colleagues to make the country more attractive for highly qualified specialists from abroad by easing the present restrictions on their immigration.

"The chancellor sees no need to amend the present law on immigration of foreign specialists and skilled workers, which came into effect in January 2009," a government spokesman said.

Merkel is convinced that the new law is showing "positive results" and therefore an amendment within a short time is not necessary, the spokesman said.

Moreover, Germany was preparing to implement the European Union's initiative for a "blue card" on the lines of the "green card" in the US, which would be introduced by the end of next year.

"The blue card is intended to simplify the procedures for foreign specialists to live and work in the EU for many years," the spokesman said.

German Federal Minister Rainer Bruederle, in an interview to a newspaper, had called for opening up the German labour market for highly qualified specialists from abroad in view of the growing shortage of skilled workers in all sectors of the industry.

Bruederle also proposed that German companies should pay "welcome money" to lure foreign specialists and skilled workers.

Earlier last week, the Federal Minister for Education and Research Annete Schavan also demanded that Germany should be made more attractive to highly qualified specialists from abroad by removing the main obstacles to their immigration.

Bruederle and Schavan proposed that the present threshold of minimum salary required for a foreign specialist to secure a residence permit in this country must be reduced on completely eliminated.

They also asked for easing the visa restrictions for specialists from abroad and to make it easier for them to bring their families.

The new law, which came into effect 19 months ago, requires a migrant seeking a job in a German company should get a minimum annual income of 64,000 euros in order to obtain a residence permit.

Bruedrle said that shortage of skilled workers rather than unemployment will be a major problem for the country's labour market in the coming years and the German companies were in a "brutal competition" with other countries for the world's most highly qualified workers.

Shortage of specialists has the potential to develop as a major problem for the German industry in the coming years, Bruedrle said.

In the present context of more than three million unemployed people, this problem draws much less attention now. But, if Germany's economic recovery continues, shortage of skilled workers in the industry will become more acute, Bruederle said.

Horst Seehofer, Chairman of Chancellor Merkel's coalition partner Christian Social Union (CSU) and prime minister of Bavaria, shared the view that the requirement of minimum salary for foreign specialists to obtain a residence permit must be reduced to make it easier for them to take up a job in this country.

"Germany will become increasingly dependent on specialists from abroad as the shortage of skilled workers in the industry is set to become more acute in the coming years," Seehofer said in a television interview.

However, he rejected Bruederles proposal to lure foreign specialists by offering them a "welcome money".

The head of the German Labour Office Frank Juergen Weise suggested that before opening Germany's labour market for specialists from abroad, more efforts should be made to train some of the country's three million unemployed people for suitable jobs in the industry.

"We cannot allow that many people are without jobs because their talents have not been used," Weise said in a newspaper interview.