Foreign specialists are not queuing up to come to Germany said Thomas de Maizière at the 2015 Migration Conference. Many prefer to go to Canada, Australia, New Zealand or the United States of America.

He called for "immigration marketing" to attract more highly qualified immigrants to Germany. It is important to drum up more interest in the German language in the countries of origin of potential immigrants he explained. By working with the business and academic community new incentives in the form of grants and internships can be developed.

Thomas de Maizière praised the "welcome centres" that some towns and cities have put in place for immigrants. He added, however, that German businesses, German chambers of commerce abroad and German embassies and consulates must do more to specifically recruit skilled professionals.

"We need debate, not silence"

According to a recent Bertelsmann study, 59 per cent of Germans would say that immigrants are welcomed by the population. There is, however, a significant minority that is of a very different opinion, said Thomas de Maizière. "It is not helpful to ignore this. We need debate."

Rather than talking about "permitting" immigration, we should be speaking more about "inviting immigrants and their arrival". A new law, whether an immigration law or a law on residence rights will always only regulate "who is entitled to come here and stay here" said Thomas de Maizière. Laws can always be improved on. But, what we must improve above all, is immigration itself, he declared: recruiting and attracting immigrants, keeping them, helping them find their feet, integrating them and enhancing the will to integrate.

In particular the minister advocated fostering immigration from other EU states. He finds it quite incomprehensible that so little is said about the largest group of migrants.

Humanitarian responsibility for refugees

The conference also discussed asylum and protecting refugees. Germany takes its humanitarian responsibility extremely seriously, said Thomas de Maizière in his opening address. No other country in Europe is doing as much as Germany to take in refugees from the civil wars in Iraq and Syria. Germany has taken in about three quarters of all Syrian refugees seeking protection outside the region through humanitarian programmes.

National alliance for migration and integration

Thomas de Maizière aims to put in place a broad alliance for migration and integration – to move past the headlines to the substantial arguments – away from the question "How we can regulate who is entitled to come here?" to the question "How we can find the right people and how can we live together?", as the Federal Interior Minister put it.