ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Germany will make legal entry to the country easier for people who want to enter the job market, and will create more opportunities as a step to prevent illegal migration, a minister for the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia told Rudaw.
“We will now have a new migration policy which allows people from other countries to come to Germany through work contracts, and for that we will create a job market that provides more opportunities,” Joachim Stamp, the minister of children, family, refugees and integration for the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia told Rudaw’s Alla Shally last week.
This comes after a boat carrying 33 migrants capsized in the English Channel on November 24. There are two known survivors of the disaster while 27 migrants drowned, among which were 17 Kurds, and four people are still missing.
The German minister added that the country wants to increase the labor force and facilitate for foreign workers to enter Germany.
“Right now I can say that small and medium sized companies are looking for labor force and need more employees, those who have a degree and skills have a very good chance in the German job market,” Stamp said, adding that he is optimistic about being able to work with businesses and the labor force in cities of the Kurdistan Region.
Germany is considered as the European country with the largest amount of Kurds. Over a million Kurds from Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey have sought asylum in the country over the past decades.
The minister’s statement comes as thousands of Iraqi and Kurdish people have traveled to the Polish border in recent months, where they hope to cross over then make their way to Germany. In response, Poland has tightened its border security. Some migrants on the Belarus-Poland border have sustained injuries, and several others have lost their lives.
Germany’s new Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock earlier this month said that it was important to them that migrants “on both sides of the border” receive humanitarian aid.
Erbil and Baghdad have accused Minsk of exploiting the migrants for political gains against the European Union. Iraq suspended the work of both the honorary embassy of Belarus in Baghdad and the consulate in Erbil in an effort to prevent its citizens from traveling to Minsk.
Since October 2020, the EU has imposed restrictive measures against Belarus, adopted in response to concerns over the 2020 presidential election and intimidation and violent repression of peaceful protesters, opposition members and journalists.
EU members of the United Nations Security Council and the US condemned Belarus for the migrant crisis on its borders last month, describing it as an “orchestrated instrumentalisation of human beings whose lives and wellbeing have been put in danger for political purposes by Belarus.”
The German minister reiterated the European Union stance on the matter and said that the Belarus president has “intentionally and through false information brought people to Belarus and promised them that they can get to Europe easily, which is in no way true because European borders are closed.”
Stamp added that the migrants heading toward Europe through Minsk are not “ordinary migrants”.
“In fact they are refugees who are looking to build a different life and work in Germany and other European countries. These are all people that bought their flights to Minsk through traveling agencies and could afford it, therefore they do not have political problems and their life was not endangered,” he said.
German officials have previously called on Kurdish migrants to build their future at home rather than taking the dangerous route of migration to Europe via the Belarus-Poland border.
Michael Kretschmer, Minister-President of Saxony last month told Rudaw that “a very few number of Iraqis are granted immigration because the country, especially the Kurdistan Region, is stable and we gladly see that we have good relations with the Kurdistan Region, and we want to support and improve the lives of people there.”
Iraq has taken measures to repatriates migrants stuck on Eastern European borders. The country began offering repatriation flights last month, returning over 3,000 Iraqi and Kurdish migrants from Minsk.
Earlier this month, the Iraqi foreign ministry said that the country’s embassy in Poland will offer Iraqi migrants stuck on the Polish-German border laissez-passers to voluntarily return home.
