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“A general plan for immigration and integration is necessary”: so says the ZdK, the Central Committee of German Catholics, which issued an appeal on 17 October, to coincide with the consultations being conducted on the law on immigration. The ZdK urges “government and opposition” to “reinforce efforts to reach a viable compromise”. It recognises and “supports with all its energy” the commitment aimed at boosting the offer of courses in German and to consolidate knowledge of the language of immigrants who permanently live in Germany, and expresses the hope that “in the debate on questions of funding what is objectively necessary will not be put aside”. Nonetheless says the ZdK in its communiqué “although German language courses are important, integration is even more so”, and “measures to this end, promoted by municipalities, church organizations and social groups operating in the territory, need to be reinforced”. “Integration always means a call to solidarity with one’s neighbour”: this concerns “us Christians” in particular, emphasises the committee. The ZdK “expressly” reaffirms its own commitment “to the improvement of the humanitarian protection of refugees”, and calls for the application also in Germany “of the standards of the Geneva Convention [on right of asylum] also in the case of the persecution of immigrants by non-state bodies”. It further underlines the need to safeguard “the family and family unity also in the case of refugees and immigrants”; that means increasing immigrants’ right to be reunited with their children up to the age of eighteen.
