Germany’s Leaders Agree to Restrict Entry of Refugees

In a move to stem violence and an outcry over a heavy influx of immigrants, leaders of Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s three-party coalition government agreed Tuesday to change the constitution to limit the number of refugees.

In a proposal to be introduced in Parliament on Thursday, the coalition also said the country must consider adopting its first immigration law.

Germany, with some of the world’s most lax refugee policies, is burdened with supporting hundreds of thousands who fled ex-Yugoslav republics, the former Soviet Bloc and the Third World while it struggles to revamp post-Communist eastern Germany.

“We want Germany to remain a foreigner-friendly country,” the coalition said in obvious reference to the rise in right-wing attacks on foreigners that have left over a dozen people dead since unification two years ago.

More than 300,000 people have sought asylum in Germany in the first nine months of 1992; officials expect the year’s total to reach 450,000. The government says that most come for economic reasons.