COPY LINK

IMMIGRATION

Germany and Kenya strike labour migration deal

Germany and Kenya on Friday struck a labour and migration deal to allow skilled workers from the east African country to live and work in the biggest EU economy.

Published: 14 September 2024 08:36 CEST

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (R) and Kenya's President William Ruto shake hands at the end of a joint press conference. Photo: Tobias SCHWARZ/AFP.

The deal will help Germany as it struggles with an ageing and shrinking pool of workers, said Chancellor Olaf Scholz as he welcomed President William Ruto in Berlin.

The agreement will also streamline the repatriation of illegal immigrants, although there are relatively few Kenyan asylum seekers in Germany, which hosts far larger numbers of migrants from Syria and Afghanistan as well as Ukrainian war refugees.

Irregular immigration has been a flashpoint political issue in Germany where popular fears have been fuelled by a recent spate of Islamist attacks and driven the rise of the far-right AfD party.

“The basis of our prosperity is being open to the world,” said Scholz, who added that the deal with Kenya would help counter the “glaring shortage of skilled workers” in Germany.

He said Kenya boasts “an incredible number of highly qualified IT specialists” and said many of its skilled workers and young people could soon come to Germany for work and vocational training.

Ruto hailed the comprehensive migration and labour mobility partnership agreement, which he said would harness the “human capital in Kenya, where we have a big youth bulge”.

“We can combine the innovation, creativity, energy, talent, knowledge of our young people with German investment, technology and resources and provide for a win-win outcome.”

Scholz said the agreement also provides for “effective return procedures for those who have come to us from Kenya but do not have or cannot acquire a right of residence here”.

Ruto said “this framework gives us an opportunity to avoid illegal migrants. Because illegal migrants pose a problem both to us and to Germany.”

Germany has since 2022 struck similar migration agreements with India and Georgia and plans to sign another when Scholz visits Uzbekistan next week.

Berlin has also been in various stages of talks on similar arrangements with Colombia, Ghana, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Morocco and the Philippines.

Member comments

Become a Member to leave a comment.

Thousands of jobs have already been lost in the region, where wind farms now rise near abandoned open-pit mines and many people look with dread towards 2038, the deadline for the “coal exit”.

Their fears help explain the strong local support for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which does not just rail against migrants but also rejects the green energy push and questions man-made climate change.

At local elections held in Spremberg in June, the AfD scored 39.3 percent – an omen ahead of regional elections next Sunday in the state of Brandenburg, which polls suggest it could win.

Lignite, or brown coal, may be a climate killer, but since the 19th century it has been key to the identity of the Lusatia industrial region on the Polish border, known as the Lausitz in German.

“Thousands of people here have been linked to coal their whole working lives,” said the town’s mayor, Christine Herntier, an independent who has held the post for a decade.

“We are proud of our tradition,” said Herntier, 67, pointing to a huge map on her office wall of the Schwarze Pumpe plant and its surrounding industrial complex.

Most people in Spremberg, population 25,000, have grudgingly accepted the coal phase-out plan, under which the government has earmarked billions for structural transition plans, she said.

But, she added, ahead of the state election the winding down of coal “is still a big issue”.

‘Anger over wind farm’

Michael Hanko, the AfD’s top representative in Spremberg, said he is certain that the looming demise of the lignite industry is “one of the main reasons” residents are voting for his party.

“I don’t think the government has really got them on board with this whole prescribed transformation, saying that we now have to do everything with renewable energies,” Hanko said.

Michael Hanko, the AfD (Alternative for Germany) top candidate, in Spremberg, eastern Germany on, September 9, 2024. Photo by Femke COLBORNE / AFP

The AfD, founded about a decade ago, scored a triumph earlier this month when it won an election in the eastern state of Thuringia and came a close second in Saxony.

It now also has a good chance of winning in Brandenburg, the state that surrounds Berlin, where it is polling narrowly in first place at around 27 percent.

When the German government decided five years ago to phase out coal, it pledged around €40 billion to help coal regions adapt, with €17 billion for the Lausitz alone.

Much of the money is intended to flow into developing the renewables and hydrogen sectors, helping the region maintain its identity as an energy hub.

But residents complain the investment has been too slow to materialise and is flowing into the wrong places.

In Spremberg, plans to extend a nearby wind park have caused outrage among some locals, who fear it will be a threat to 150-year-old trees, a protected swallow species and drinking water.

‘Something different’

Coal has long been synonymous with the Lausitz region, which takes in parts of Brandenburg and Saxony and a small strip of Poland, and where lignite was discovered in the late 18th century.

But the industry all but collapsed after German reunification in 1990, when most of the region’s open pit mines were shut down and thousands of jobs vanished.

Today, only around 8,000 people are employed in the lignite industry across the Lausitz, with 4,500 of them in Brandenburg, though the industry is still one of the largest private employers in the state and coal remains a strong part of the region’s identity.

Already weary from the problems caused by reunification, people in the region have felt “overwhelmed” by recent global challenges, said Lars Katzmarek, a board member of the Pro-Lausitz campaign group.

Lars Katzmarek, board member of the Pro-Lausitz campaign group. Photo by Femke COLBORNE / AFP

“The coronavirus, the energy crisis, the Ukraine war – these are all very difficult things that people still haven’t fully digested… and perhaps at some point they just close their ears,” he said.

On a rainy morning in Spremberg, Joachim Paschke, 81, who used to work in mechanical engineering and welding, was buying bread rolls in the bakery opposite the town hall.

“I’m definitely not an AfD supporter but I can understand people who are,” he said.

“The established parties have nothing concrete and the AfD is offering something different. People want change.”

By Femke COLBORNE