Germany's cabinet on Wednesday passed a draft bill to ease the citizenship law, hoping a faster track to German nationality will attract skilled migrants to plug chronic labour shortages holding back Europe's biggest economy.
Some experts caution that progress may be slow, noting parts of Germany's administrative machinery are already creaking under a big backlog of existing citizenship applications.
Germany, like industrialised countries around the world, is facing deep labour shortages, particularly in skilled high-growth sectors, which are taking their toll on an economy that could yet face a recession this year. The draft bill will also simplify the path to a German passport for thousands of foreign "guest workers" brought in decades ago from Turkey and southern Europe to rebuild Germany's post-war economy. It will do this by lowering German language requirements and by withdrawing a naturalisation test.
Kolb said similar problems with long waiting times for appointments were also hindering Germany's parallel reforms in related areas such as visas for skilled workers from abroad.Staff shortages in the public sector, whose jobs are mostly not as competitive as other sectors, a lack of digitisation and the impact of several related migration reforms that were passed this year were overwhelming immigration authorities, Kolb added.
Migrants complain of long waits even for a first citizenship consultation appointment. But not everyone is deterred. Waiting times for applications vary between one year in cities like Hamburg and Munich to up to 36 months in Chemnitz, the study, which surveyed migration authorities in 23 of the most populous cities in Germany, found.
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