All throughout 2014, the news media in Germany talked about asylum, immigration and issues. You'd hear political folks talk about the issues to some minor degree, then do nothing. This all mostly had to do with various non-European individuals that appeared in Germany to claim some type of status.
Well....this week in Germany....suddenly there was change....oddly enough.
Because of the inflow of Kosovo refugees or asylum-seekers.....roughly 18,000 in the past ninety days....there was a decision finally to fix some issues, but only related to the Kosovo folks. Yeah, it has a funny situation attached to it.
First, the German political folks wanted everyone to know that there is a listing of countries where things are considered 'SAFE'. Kosovo, Serbia and Macedonia are considered 'SAFE'. You can't walk into Germany and claim any asylum status with ninety-nine percent of the excuses that a guy would typically use.
Second, the German political folks have reshaped the approval process (shocking, I know....for all of 2014, rarely any upgrades to the system). They now say that Kosovo folks will get a fourteen-day process. Everyone else? They rotate back a step or two....probably adding a month to three months to their own approval/disapproval process.
Third, more employees within the approval process. Shocker? Oh yeah. For months and months.....as more folks arrived in Germany....no one wanted to increase the manpower at the immigration department. Reasons? No one would ever say in public or on any forum. It was like manpower was a forbidden topic to bring up or discuss.
Hiring and building up a department? This isn't exactly a skill-set that you'd throw onto an advertising campaign....find two hundred more employees over a month, and just incorporate them into the system. Germany just doesn't function like that.
Once you categorize the skills required.....you can figure that it'll be hard to find more than a dozen folks who might fit into such a job. So you end up with dozens of additional folks who really aren't that capable for the job....show the right skills....or have a four-star training program to bring them up to speed in six months. This might be the reason why they were so against expanding the department because you just won't find the right people with the right skills.
What's all this add up to?
There's 18,000 Kosovo folks in Germany presently, and I'd take a humble guess that another 50,000 will show by late May. Virtually every single one of them will fill out paperwork.....thinking it will take six months to get approval and just start hope that it'll all work out. The shock will be in two weeks as they get called into an office....told they were disapproved and they need to be on a bus tomorrow morning which will take them back to Kosovo (note, the German tax-payer will be paying for their two weeks in the compound and the bus-trip back to Kosovo).
A logical guy would ask...what happens next? Political turmoil and frustrations in Kosovo with a high unemployment rate (some news sources say the youth unemployment rate is near fifty percent). It invites civil conflict and eventually civil war. Unless some Germans get smart....figure ways to integrate some business opportunities into the region and take advantage of cheaper wages....nothing is going to stop the approaching civil conflict. Then, because it won't be 'SAFE'.....the Kosovo folks will arrive and find an open door.
I admit.....it's not the job of the German government to take every single asylum seeker, but when you look at the various groups coming into Germany and getting permission to stay....there's not much difference between them and the Kosovo crowd. They both seeker an opportunity in life.
Bottom line? Oddly, the Germans have finally reacted to immigration and asylum issues and triggered a change in the way business is done. But only after the Kosovo crowd got into the 'game'.
No comments:
Post a Comment