BERLIN: Germany adopted its first nationwide minimum wage yesterday, hailed as a victory by unions and the centre-left coalition partners of conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The base pay of ¤8.50 ($11.60) an hour will eventually benefit more than five million workers in the low-wage sector when it is phased in between 2015 and 2017.
Ahead of the vote in parliament, which passed with a large majority, Labour Minister Andrea Nahles hailed it as a “milestone” of huge significance for millions of workers.
Introducing a universal minimum wage brings Europe’s biggest economy in line with 21 of the EU’s 28 member states.
The Confederation of German Trade Unions welcomed the move after struggling for many years against what it claimed was “propaganda” that it would destroy jobs.
“The minimum wage won’t be a job killer,” said its chairman Reiner Hoffmann. “This has been confirmed by serious studies and the experience of our European neighbours and the United States.”
Merkel herself had long opposed the minimum wage, warning it could force small and medium-sized businesses to lay off workers. Instead she favoured separate pay deals by region and sector.
But she caved in after tough haggling late last year on forming a “grand coalition” with the Social Democrats, who had promised steps to narrow a growing pay gap in Germany’s 42-million-strong labour market.
“Now it’s decided we must implement it,” Merkel said after the vote. Referring to a “painful compromise”, she conceded that nine out of 10 Germans backed the measure.
The starting level, set to be reviewed every two years, is in line with those in other major developed economies: slightly less than France’s ¤9.53, but above Britain’s £6.31 (¤7.91, $10.83).
The Munich daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung labelled it an “historic reform” that would protect workers from “appallingly bad rates of pay”. German industry groups argued the minimum wage will destroy jobs, especially in the formerly communist east where, a quarter century after the fall of the Berlin Wall, wages are still lower than in western states.
“Not a good day for Germany,” commented Bavaria’s employers federation, which warned of “incalculable consequences for growth and employment”.
The government has agreed certain exemptions, such as for under-18s, to encourage them to seek training or apprenticeships rather than better-paid unskilled work. Another exception will be people who re-enter the labour market after 12 months or more out of work, who can be paid less for the first six months on the basis that a badly paid job is better than none at all.
The base wage will also be phased in more slowly for newspaper delivery workers and seasonal fruit pickers, to help keep those sectors viable.
Agriculture Minister Christian Schmidt welcomed the minimum wage but warned that the price of German fruit and vegetables could rise and open the door for imports. The EU’s employment commissioner, Laszlo Andor, criticised the exceptions, telling the Welt daily that minimum pay must apply to all “so that people do not fall into poverty despite having work”.
AFP
BERLIN: Germany’s lower house of parliament passed new citizenship laws yesterday, relaxing some of the strictest rules in Europe to allow young Germans of foreign origin to hold two passports - a move that benefits the large Turkish community.
Until now, children of immigrants from most non-EU countries have had to choose at the age of 23 between German citizenship or that of their parents’ country of origin.
The dual passport prohibition has long rankled among the roughly three million people of Turkish origin living in Germany, just under half of whom have taken German citizenship.
Young people can now have two passports if, at the age of 21, they can prove they have lived in Germany for at least eight years or have gone to school in the country for six years and gained school-leaving qualifications.
Turkish community leaders have criticised the new law because it applies only to youngsters and does not cover older people, many of whom have spent decades in Germany.
Dual citizenship was a pet project of the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) who share power with Angela Merkel’s conservatives. The conservatives had long opposed dual citizenship, arguing it was impossible to be loyal to two countries at the same time.
Reuters
