ICYMI: Germany: Where the refugee flood is a solution, not a problem

Refugees as part of an economic immigration strategy:

Unlike Canada, where refugees are mainly sponsored by families and charities, the German government sorts and disperses its asylum seekers: Towns and cities with the strongest economies get the most. This week, Chancellor Angela Merkel pressed the 27 other European Union countries to imitate this system internationally. The response, so far, has been chilly.

In Germany, by contrast, the public and their politicians are receiving the majority of Europe’s refugees with surprising calm, even optimism. While there was a brief flare-up of anti-immigrant politics earlier this year in cities of the former East Germany (where there are almost no immigrants to be found), those died away quickly. Here, even refugee advocates say they’re surprised by the broadly positive reception.

“I am really amazed at how much this country has changed – even a decade ago this would have created anger and distrust, but today I’m hearing nothing but welcome for the new refugees – people are being really open,” says Zerai Kiros Abraham, a former Eritrean refugee who now runs Project Moses, a refugee-settlement charity in Frankfurt.

Olaf Cunitz, the vice-mayor of Frankfurt responsible for planning and housing, says that the refugees are being seen by many Germans not as a problem but as a solution. “What’s unusual is that here in Frankfurt, people are very, very open to the topic of refugees,” he says. “At the moment, we don’t have any resistance, in any neighbourhood, to the settlement of refugees. People say ‘We need new people, they need our help. We’re a wealthy city, we can handle this.’”

Nowhere is this attitude more visible than in the rural town of Gelnhausen, to the east of Frankfurt, where town officials are hoping that the 2,500 refugees they will receive this year will be just the thing for their aging, fast-shrinking work force. They particularly want the Syrians, who tend to be middle-class and have the professional degrees and technical skills needed here.

“The good thing about the refugees is that they’re here – we don’t have to go out to their communities to get them,” says Susanne Simmler, head of the regional council. “We have labour shortages and demographic changes here, so we need new people – and a rural region like this normally does not attract immigrants.”

Germany: Where the refugee flood is a solution, not a problem – The Globe and Mail.