German politicians suggest immigrant 'intelligence test'
German politicians are campaigning for immigrants to undergo intelligence tests before they are granted residency or citizenship rights in the country. Allan Hall, in Berlin Published: 8:56PM BST 29 Jun 2010 Peter Trapp, a domestic policy expert with the ruling conservative CDU party in Berlin, said; "We have to establish criteria for immigration that really benefit our country. "In addition to adequate education and job qualifications, one benchmark should be intelligence. I am in favour of intelligence tests for immigrants. We cannot continue to make this issue taboo." Mr Trapp received support from Markus Ferber, a member of the European Parliament for the Christian Social Union, the CDU's Bavarian sister party. Mr Ferber said: "We need a unified policy for Europe. Canada is much further along on the issue and requires that children of immigrants have a higher IQ than those born in Canada." Their comments come just a month after numbers were released suggesting that Germany is not the first choice among those searching for a new home. In 2009, more people emigrated from Germany than arrived, marking the second year in a row that the country has shown a net loss, following a quarter century of net gains from immigration. The CDU was at pains to play down the comments made by Mr Trapp and Mr Ferber. Given Berlin's focus on improving the integration of the country's immigrant population, Maria Boehmer, who has been tasked by Chancellor Angela Merkel with improving integration, rejected the call for intelligence tests. "Such comments are discriminatory and do not promote a culture of welcoming, which would do our country good," Mrs Boehmer said. "The demand for an IQ test for immigrants is absurd and does not demonstrate much intelligence http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/7860804/German-politicians-suggest-immigrant-intelligence-test.html
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