Work in Germany – a nightmare for Bulgarians

Perhaps it was the car. It had been there for weeks, a grey model from twenty years back with rust spots on the hood, looking somewhat lost among the neatly parked limousines, and the only one with a Bulgarian license plate in the whole neighbourhood. And there were the signboards on the mailbox with ever changing names, which eventually roused suspicion among the residents of the street.

The two-family house stands in the leafy middle-class suburb of Sachsenhausen in the south of Frankfurt. The front door of the house stands open. Stale heated air smelling of mildew wafts through the door of the flat and into the stairwell. Inside the musty flat, the Petrova family (their name has been changed) sits on mattresses in front of a small table in a room where the first thing that leaps to the eye is a huge mould stain in the corner.

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Greek immigration

Newcomers left to their own devices

Der Spiegeltraces the career of a young Greek who arrives in Berlin and is welcomed by her fellow countrymen of an earlier generation. The latter, who came in the 1960s and worked their way up, are feeling overwhelmed by the worries of integrating the new arrivals. Like many other young and qualified Greeks, the weekly notes, the new immigrants cannot get a foothold in German society -

The newcomers can expect no aid from the German state. Certainly, Angela Merkel speaks constantly of ‘European solidarity’, [...] but she is not ready to support young Greeks fleeing the crisis. In late February the Ministry of Employment signed a directive that bars access for EU citizens from Hartz IV [the welfare program for Germany’s long-term unemployed]. Its main intent is to discourage penniless migrants from southern Europe from coming to look for work in Germany.

[...] The example of young Greeks with a university education demonstrates that the Federal Republic is far from being the country of immigration that it would like to be.

[...] The potential of young skilled immigrants goes unused. Officially, German policy defends a united Europe, without borders and with a common market. But it is not ready to shoulder the burdens that come from that.