Refugee wave to complicate German immigration policy

Significance

Last year saw the largest population increase since 1992, largely owing to immigration, according to the Federal Statistical Office. The asylum seeker influx has revived debates on Germany's approach to immigration, including a possible need for a new immigration law. The government coalition has been split on this idea, but the previously reluctant Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has begun to accept it. There is broad agreement that managed immigration, through the targeting of highly qualified people and in-demand occupations, will contribute to economic growth and welfare sustainability by mitigating demographic ageing. However, the asylum seeker influx and rising fears of intra-EU 'poverty immigration' are making immigration management more difficult.

Impacts

• Germany will keep pressing for EU-level asylum policy solutions, but political and practical obstacles will impede progress.
• Germany's ability and need to take more immigrants will stoke tensions with EU states with more population growth and/or weaker economies.
• Chancellor Angela Merkel will try to balance a liberal stance on immigration against concerns in the CDU/CSU about its scale.
• Repatriation of asylum seekers from Germany to south-eastern Europe will increase.
• The UK government will seek to build on German concerns about intra-EU 'poverty immigration' in its pre-referendum EU renegotiation.