The German Bundestag has passed a historic law yesterday, July 7, 2016. The law aims at speeding up integration of refugees. Amongst other provisions, the law introduces subsidised courses to help refugees settle in Germany but will deny residence permits to those who fail to take up the offer of assistance. Over one million refugees came to Germany during last year, the peak year of the current refugee crisis.

The Bavarian capital currently hosts some 11,000 of them (some 1,000 on the Bayernkaserne grounds alone). Some 60 per cent of the refugees currently placed in Munich are younger than 25 years. The City is set to undertake measures to integrate the young people as soon as possible. A plan on how to achieve this has been presented by Munich’s Mayor Dieter Reiter yesterday. He said: ”It is of greatest importance to integrate the refugees into our city’s society in a speedy and sustainable manner.”

The main measures planned are early German language courses and integrating the refugees in the job market. The City announced that it plans to spend over €21 million in the course of the next three years in integration measures and it thereby aims to close gaps between what is provided by the German state and the situation in the Bavarian capital. Germany and Bavaria are only paying for integration measures for refugees coming from countries, such as Syria, Iraq and Eritrea, but refugees from those countries make up only 35 per cent of the refugees in Munich. Many of the refugees in Munich have come from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Somalia and Mali.

The €21 million will be spent on German language courses, “Clearing” stations (where authorities will meet the refugees for a kind of evaluation), integration centres and education, tz.de reports today.