27 Spotlight on 1_10 11.11.09 10:02 Seite 27

GLOBAL BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT ON GERMANY ■

Miroslav Klose and Lukas Podolski: German footballers with migrant GERMANY’S backgrounds OWN GOAL Nicht nur im Fußball sollten Zuwanderer willkommen sein. KLAUS ZIMMERMANN zeigt, dass eine restriktive Einwanderungspolitik verhängnisvoll ist. medium US

ntil a few years ago, Germany’s main soccer league, the , was quite a boring af- fair. But recently, the excitement it generates U. Kraft/action press Uhas risen significantly. This is largely thanks to Those who arrived after 2004 are older and less well an impressive number of foreign players from central educated than the ones who came to Germany before and eastern Europe in the teams these days. then. This is not exactly what a competitive modern This is a clear sign of how beneficial migration can be economy should be aiming for. in the modern world. Unfortunately, when faced with In contrast, the more liberal-minded EU countries the choice of allowing migration from the eight coun- found that their open labor-market policies were re- tries that joined the European Union in 2004, the Ger- warded with what has since proven to be a reduction in man government was not so open-minded. Along with low-skill immigrants from new EU members, com- neighboring Austria, Germany chose not to open its la- pared to before 2004. bor market to immigrants from those countries. This, of course, has not stopped the flow of foreign “Restrictions have workers into Germany. All the restrictions have done is to reduce the skill levels of these immigrants. After all, reduced the skill levels of engineers don’t usually sneak across borders, nurses are not the types to falsify papers, and schools rarely hire immigrants to Germany” black-market teachers. It is now clear that the German decision in 2004 has Immigrants to Germany — primarily young men led to the government scoring an own goal. Until that from Poland and the Baltic countries — were 23.1 per- time, legal immigrants to Germany included refugees, cent less likely to be employed than Germans after asylum seekers, or reuniting families. Despite Germany’s 2004. This is almost double the figure before 2004. In resistance to immigration from the new EU, there has those EU countries that opened their labor markets, the been a regular inflow from central and eastern Europe rate of employment for immigrants who came after — recently averaging about 50,000 immigrants per year. 2004 is higher than for the earlier arrivals. Open borders among EU member states do not lead, after all [)Äft&r (O:l] schließlich as is often feared, to a lower-quality labor market. And asylum seeker [E(saIlEm )si:k&r] Asylsuchende(r) these immigrants do not have a greater need for welfare Baltic countries [(bO:ltIk )kVntriz] Baltikum beneficial [)benI(fIS&l] vorteilhaft, nutzbringend than domestic populations. Instead, the migration has, boring [(bO:rIN] langweilig in fact, helped Europe to build both an integrated and competitive [kEm(petEtIv] wettbewerbsfähig dynamic economy. engineer [)endZI(nI&r] Ingenieur(in) Germany’s restrictive policy has been a complete fail- enlargement [In(lA:rdZmEnt] Erweiterung falsify sth. [(fO:lsIfaI] etw. fälschen ure. It has not attracted the required highly skilled im- inflow [(InfloU] Zustrom migrants, while continuing to bring in those who are league [li:g] Liga low-skilled. If that isn’t a painful own goal, then what nurse [n§:s] Krankenpfleger(in) open-minded [)oupEn (maIndId] aufgeschlossen, offen is? The newly found vitality in the German Bundesliga policymaker [(pA:lEsi)meIk&r] politische Entscheidungs- should show German policymakers the way forward to träger(in) a better and more inclusive future. ■BS refugee [)refju(dZi:] Flüchtling reuniting families [ri:ju)naItIN (fÄmliz] nachziehende Familien- Reprinted with permission of The Wall Street Journal Europe mitglieder © 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All rights reserved. score an own goal [)skO:r En )oUn (goUl] ein Eigentor schießen KLAUS ZIMMERMANN skill level [(skIl )lev&l] Qualifikationsniveau is the director of IZA, the sneak across: ~ a border heimlich die Grenze über- Institute for the Study of Labor, in Bonn, Germany. [)sni:k E(krO:s] schreiten With Martin Kahanec, he edited the book EU Labor soccer [(sA:k&r] Fußball Markets After Post-Enlargement Migration, Springer, welfare [(welfer] staatliche Unterstützung ISBN 978-3-642-02241-8, €139.05.

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