As Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock now apparently takes care of the job market. In view of the 1.7 million vacancies we currently have, the number of visas issued should be quadrupled, said Baerbock and Labor Minister Heil (SPD) in a letter published in the FAZ.
Baerbock and Heil want to create “the most modern immigration law in Europe”.
“In view of the 1.7 million vacancies in Germany, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) and Labor Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD) want to bring significantly more qualified foreigners to Germany. “Last year, not even 100,000 skilled workers from third countries came to us in addition to skilled workers from EU countries. That’s not enough,” write the two ministers in a joint article for the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”.
The federal government will therefore reduce bureaucracy and make family reunification easy. “By the end of 2024, we want to process four times as many visas for skilled workers in the Federal Office for Foreign Affairs as we have in the past,” write the ministers. Baerbock and Heil left Berlin for Brazil together on Sunday, primarily to recruit nurses there.
“The hospitals can no longer find enough nurses. And on the other side of the Atlantic, in Brazil, one in ten nurses is unemployed – despite having a good education,” they write. “We will promote the German labor market in Brazil – at government level, but above all among professionals from the practice, in hospitals and at the nursing association.” The two ministers are harsh on the German bureaucracy: “In the German regulatory jungle we are still losing many well-qualified people that we would have needed on our labor market. Why should a Brazilian nurse wait months for German authorities when the way to Portugal, Canada or the USA is much less complicated?” write Baerbock and Heil.
The traffic light is currently putting a “paradigm shift in German migration policy” into practice. “Together we create the most modern immigration law in Europe. But if we want to get people excited about Germany in the long term, then we have to reach out to them and win their hearts. Therefore, of course, the families of skilled workers must also be able to move to Germany and their children must be able to go to daycare,” write the two ministers in the FAZ.”
Report with material from the dts news agency
Photo: Sign of a German embassy abroad, via dts news agency