Rights for Refugees

"Tolerated" refugees in Germany, those who have not been given asylum status but could not be sent back to the country of origin for humanitarian reasons. Under the agreement, long-term foreigners in Germany who have be given until the end of 2009 to find a job.

"It creates a new staring point for affected people who want to live here in Germany," Christian Democratic Union migration expert Maria Böhmer told Deutschlandfunk radio, adding that joining the workforce would aid foreigners' integration.

Sebastian Edathy, the head of the Bundestag's interior committee and Social Democratic Party member told RBB-Inforadio the compromise was "sensible and humane" because "the long-time tolerated are not required to live off welfare and instead are allowed to work."

There are currently about 180,000 people, mainly from Afghanistan, Iraq and Kosovo, in Germany with "tolerated" status after their applications for asylum denied. Edathy said it would be difficult to estimate how many of them would be able to find jobs in Germany.

Language skills highlighted

Additionally, the compromise requires spouses who immigrate to Germany be at least 18 years old and have basic German language skills. The deal also threatens unspecified sanctions for foreigners who refuse to participate in language and integration courses.

An emphasis on language proficiency in the nearly 500-page bill, which requires parliamentary approval before becoming law, was a crucial point for Hans-Peter Uhl, the Christian conservatives' interior affairs expert.

He said being able to converse in German was "the least that can be expected when someone who wants to move the center of his life to Germany."

Openness to foreigners needed

The government also called for Germans to be open to the immigrants living around them.

"In addition to what the state is doing and the honest willingness of migrants to work, we also need support from the general population to confront the people coming to us in a open and tolerant manner," German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble wrote in an op-ed for Die Zeit newspaper.

Co-leader of the opposition Greens party, Claudia Roth, had harsh words for the draft, calling it the result of a "competition in paltriness" that would only benefit those "who proved economically useful" while those truly in need of protection would get no help at all.

Organizations representing foreigners in Germany also expressed their unhappiness about the deal in an open letter to Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Signed by Germany's Protestant and Catholic churches as well as Amnesty International and Pro Aysl, the letter was critical of the language requirements saying that courses were difficult for foreigners living in rural areas to attend and that requiring language skills for spouses was discriminatory.

A spokeswoman for the DGB Trade Union Federation said the new regulations "are not a solution to better integration, but only deal with old cases which only benefit a minority."