Introduction

The potential of a managed immigration to Germany due to economic reasons was for a long time ignored by German politicians. They claimed that Germany was not a country of immigration at all. For example, the German social democratic party (SPD) agreed in 1982 that the Federal Republic of Germany was not an immigration country. In 1994 the conservatives (CDU/CSU) made clear that their party would never adopt a German immigration law (Marshall 2000: 13, 155). This situation lasted until 2000, when the German chancellor Gerhard Schro¨der announced the decision to establish a German version of the American ‘green card’ and thereby initiated a discussion about managing the inflow of immigrants due to economic reasons. As a result, German Minister of the Interior Otto Schily declared that Germany would establish the most progressive immigration law in the European Union (EU). Immigrants should be selected on the basis of a point system, which is used in typical immigration countries such as Canada or the US. In this way, Germany would be selecting its immigrants according to demographic needs and labour market demands. The pointbased system was not introduced due to political tactics. Almost at the same time (beginning on 31 March 1998), the negotiations for the accession of Poland as a new member of the EU took place. The moot point has been the question as to whether Polish citizens wishing to work in other countries should be allowed to move freely within the EU. Germany only accepted Poland as a new EU member after being allowed to restrict the freedom of movement within the EU for those Polish employees willing to migrate to Germany.

Germany took the chance to exercise this option: Polish employees will not be allowed to work in Germany until the year 2009 (Ullrich & Rudloff 2004: 173-177; Bundesregierung 2006). Simultaneously, professional associations stated that Germany was starting to run out of doctors, something Great Britain, for example, had experienced in the past. This development was broadly covered and enlivened by the media. Great Britain had embarked on a clear strategy: ‘Poles fill holes’ announced the Department of Health (2005) referring to the fact that Polish doctors could be attracted for the British health system.