Declaring that Germany is in desperate need of migrants, the head of the umbrella group for employers’ associations has demanded the nation loosen border controls and recognise itself to be an “immigration country”.
“Germany is an immigration country. And Germany has to be made aware of this situation,” said Ingo Kramer, president of the Confederation of German Employers’ Associations (BDA).
According to the German Press Agency, Kramer said the nation will be ‘missing’ six million people of working age by the year 2030, and argued that politicians ‘must quickly realise that the country needs immigration”.
The Bremerhaven-born entrpreneur admitted, however, that this was not easy at a time when “there is some unease about migration — at least on the right of the political spectrum, because of the refugee crisis”.
But Kramer (pictured, far left) warned that the alternative would mean ‘trying to keep Germany going as an economic powerhouse with fewer people’.
As well as calling for new, ‘labour-oriented’ immigration policies, the employers’ associations chief said the state should be looking at expanding facilities — and the hours at which they operate — for looking after children so as to ensure that women work at maximum capacity.
“Only then will women be able to fully exploit all the opportunities open to them in their careers,” Kramer said.
‘Einwanderungsland’, the term used by the BDA chief to mean ‘a country of immigration’, has traditionally been used to refer to countries such as the U.S., Australia, and nations in Latin America.
In recent years, activists and politicians in favour of mass migration have been increasingly keen to include Germany amongst ‘Einwanderungsland’.
In 2015, gushing over Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to open the borders to well over a million migrants who subsequently made the trek to Europe as “a miracle”, publisher of weekly Die Zeit, Josef Joffe, said: “Germany, like the countries of English settlement, is turning into an Einwanderungsland, a country of immigration, accepting different colors, faiths and origins.
“So Germany is evolving into a kind of America, where you need not be born as American, but can become one. It is a mental and emotional revolution.”
A paper unveiled in November last year by Commissioner for Immigration, Refugees and Integration, Aydan Özoğuz, sought to enshrine in the nation’s constitution that Germany is “a diverse country of immigration”.
But Historian Klaus-Rüdiger May warned that the demands of the document, which was developed by more than fifty migrant organisations, would bankrupt businesses, pensions, and the country, and would make native Germans second class citizens in their own homeland.