Integration: "Government commission deliberately ignored work assignment"

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Several CDU members of the Bundestag and migration experts have sharply criticized the federal government's integration commission.

Last week, after two years of deliberations, which were led by the integration officer Annette Widmann-Mauz (CDU), the committee with 25 members presented its final report and recommended as a central result that the term “migration background” should be dispensed with in future.

The CDU internal politician Christoph de Vries criticized: “The specialist commission not only deliberately ignored its work assignment, but instead took a relatively one-sided position on general integration policy issues without being asked.

That is a tough piece and a very unusual process. "

The task for the commission was to "show how much immigration Germany can sustainably tolerate and under what conditions with a view to integration," said de Vries WELT.

The starting point of the commission was the definition of the black-red coalition on a "target corridor" of a maximum of 220,000 immigrants annually.

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The domestic politician criticized the fact that the commission describes "integration as a task of the state and the majority society and not primarily as an obligation of the migrants".

Existing integration deficits would be "largely ignored and integration ability rejected as a category, although there are scientifically recognized indicators such as labor force participation, educational qualifications or delinquency" in order to measure the average integration success of groups.

De Vries: "Verbal acrobatics about migration terminology instead of a substantial discussion of integration deficits helps neither the migrants nor the majority society."

"Believe that you can create new reality through new words"

The integration researcher Ruud Koopmans told WELT: “Unfortunately, the integration commission follows the academic fashion of discussing terms more than the underlying phenomena.” The Berlin professor criticizes: “The belief that you can create a new reality with new words is strong.

Any new term for a migration background would be perceived as stigmatizing again after five years. "

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The background is that "in the migrant part of the population, unfortunately, the labor force participation is lower and the average delinquency is higher".

"Eliminating these negative statistical features through intelligent migration management and integration policy is the primary goal, the terms play a subordinate role."

"The commission has completely missed its actual goal of submitting proposals for a better integration of migrants," said the CDU member of the Bundestag Christoph Bernstiel.

The report reads "in many places like minutes from an academic debating club" that "focuses on denouncing terms".

The question “whether the term migration background is discriminatory” is of secondary importance.

His party colleague Marian Wendt said: "Instead of pointing out problems and proposed solutions, the report of the expert committee prefers to deal with terminology." Integration can only succeed if it is clearly stated what is expected of people with a migration background in Germany.

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Ali Ertan Toprak (CDU), President of the Federal Working Group of Immigrant Associations in Germany, criticizes: "The report of the Expert Commission for Integration Capability is a huge disappointment and has also destroyed the work of the previous commissions and advisory boards in the Federal Chancellery since 2006." Unfortunately, the government commission is mentally moving a “left-liberal zeitgeist that wants to introduce a migrant quota one day and delete the term migrant background the next day”.

Toprak calls for "a culture of recognition that sees all citizens as full-fledged Germans".

Integration can only succeed in agreement with the receiving society, not against it.

If you ask too much of the locals, you endanger social peace.

"That does not benefit the migrants, but only strengthens the right."

“Integration ability”: Commission questions the term in its own name

The background to the commission was an agreement in the coalition agreement of 2018. The CDU, CSU and SPD wanted a committee of experts to examine the ability of business and society to integrate, for example with regard to the scarcity of daycare places and cheap apartments.

The treaty states that “migration movements to Germany and Europe are to be appropriately controlled and limited with a view to the ability of society to integrate”.

Part of the package of measures is the establishment of a federal government's expert commission "which deals with the framework conditions for integrability and submits a corresponding report to the German Bundestag".

When the report was presented to Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) last week, nothing was left of an investigation into the ability to integrate.

In the introduction to the 200-page collection of information, the “Expert Commission for Integration Skills”, as it was officially called, stated in the course of the deliberations that “a decision was made to dispense with the term 'integration capability'” because it “represents a narrowing”.

The term conveys that there is “a clear limit to integration” which “for analytical reasons alone cannot exist”.

The commission therefore decided not to concentrate on the ability to integrate, "but rather on the question of how integration processes can be designed in such a way that they are economically and socially successful and strengthen social cohesion".

The main recommendation for action at the accompanying press conference was to replace the term “migration background”.

Instead, the migrant part of the population should in future be referred to as “immigrants and their (direct) descendants”.

The statistical category “migration background” should also be replaced.