GERMANY: A Landmark immigration Bill to address Germany's ageing population and crippling skills shortage passed the Bundestag yesterday. But Chancellor Schröder's hopes of a cross-party consensus were dashed when opposition conservatives voted against the motion and threatened to veto the Bill in the upper house later this month.
"The real choice is this: do we want to limit immigration meaningfully with a law, defend our economic interests and fulfil our humanitarian obligations, or do we leave things as they are?" asked Mr Schröder.
Mr Friedrich Merz, parliamentary leader of the Christian Democrats (CDU), said the law opened the way for "still higher immigration" into the labour market.
"With 4.3 million unemployed that's completely the wrong signal at this point," he said.
Interior Minister, Mr Otto Schily, the architect of the bill, accused the conservatives of wasting a "historic chance" in favour of electioneering.
"What you're doing isn't opposition - it's obstruction," he said.
The government was anxious to achieve cross-party consensus on immigration to get it off the agenda before September's general election. To that end they made last-minute concessions to the conservatives, but to no avail.
The real test comes in three weeks when the Bill reaches the upper house, the Bundesrat, where the government lacks a majority. Mr Schröder will need to win support from opposition-controlled federal states to pass the Bill.
Yesterday he appealed to the opposition not to "adopt a position where the Bundesrat will be abused and used as an election platform".
