[Skybird]

We currently see - at least that is claimed - a wave of young people from Spain and Portugal moving to Germany, hoping to find jobs and a perspective here that they cannot find in Spain. German companies also actively recruit craftsmen and "young talents" in Spain, because they say there is a lack of these in Germany, due to high demand by the industry, but low birth rates.

Since integration and living-together with these, or people from Russia, Poland, Holland, Denmark, usually is no problem due to the relative cultural closeness, many Germans do not even realise such movements. Nor do I. The language barrier is something that these newcomers voluntarily and all by themselves try to reduce usually, and usually successful. In border areas to neighbouring countries, there is also a lot of bilateral cooperation on private, business and official level, and a lot of cross-border-job-hopping on a daily basis.

Bigger problems are people moving in from European countries that are culturally more distant, from Bulgaria Romania for example. These people fit in less enthusiastically, also often do not match the criterions for the kind of willing, well-educated and well-trained migrants that indeed are needed. On the social level, they are often seen as migrants into the social security systems, benefitting from them,. but not contributing to them. Which holds quite some truth. Subgroups like Sinti and Roma even actively reject integration and adaptation, and thus face the same antipathy from the local residents like Muslim/Turkish migrants that for the most also refuse integration and adaptation. But as a German you are not allowed to remind any of these of their own responsibility for their situation. On the other hand, the right-winged extremists get plenty of propaganda-fodder from this cirumstance - mkaing it even less acceptable for the opinion mainmstream to criticise these kinds of migrants, becasue criticising them has the smell of yourself lining up with the ringhtwingers. The EU's view is that many of these migrants are just "victims", and they all must be allowed to benefit from German security systems, even if they never contributed anything to it, and do not plan to ever do that. The French and the dutch have comparable problems, also colliding with the EU.

We have currently just normal migrant fluctuation with Central and Northern and Eastern European states, which is not surprising, since these states financially and economically are better set up than those critical money patients we have in the south, the so-called olive-area: Italy, Greece, Spain, Portugal. Fins and Swedes and Norwegians have little reason to move to Germany for economical reasons (in fact Germans move to these countries, especially academically trained people, doctors), also Poles and people from Latvia. With Greeks, Spaniards and Italians, it is different - there the crisis of the youth is obvious and drives them to the streets in existential fear.

The most obvious migration "flood", as you called it, we do see from non-Euzropean regions, however. Turkey, Iran, Kurdistan and Afghanistan are leading the list for Germany, with Iranians usually fitting in much better than the others, they are a different people, really, also many of them came for different reasons, and belong to a medium and upper social class in their former Iranian society. What Turks are for Germany, in France are the Algerians and I think the Maroccans, in England obviously the Pakistani: the dominant single migrants groups to these countries. And all of them mean troubles. It'S like I alwys say: we do not have a problem with migration in general. But with some ethnic subgroups. Most Germans see that very pragmatic, I think: migrants in general are welcomed if they fit in and integrate. Then they really can be an enrichment to Germany. If they do not integrate and do resist the demand to fit in, we tend to not like them. And integration behaviour sorted by places of origin shows huge differences. That'S why I say we have problems with some groups pf migrants, and no problems with others.