North Rhine-Westphalia’s Minister-President Hendrik Wüst departs Monday for a three-day mission to Ankara and Istanbul, the first official visit to Turkey by a state leader from Germany’s most populous Land. The trip commemorates the 65th anniversary of the 1961 bilateral labour-recruitment accord that brought hundreds of thousands of Turkish ‘guest workers’ to German factories – a milestone that still shapes today’s talent pipelines. Wüst will hold talks with Turkish ministers on mobility partnerships, attend a bilateral business forum and present a tolerance prize to ex-national-team footballer Ilkay Gündoğan. NRW counts more than 1,200 Turkish-owned companies and handles a third of all Germany-to-Turkey flights. The state government hopes to leverage historical ties to attract start-ups and skilled tradespeople under Germany’s new points-based immigration rules. For corporates the visit could unlock smoother work-permit processing at German consulates in Istanbul and Ankara, where visa queues for technical specialists average six weeks. The NRW delegation includes executives from Siemens Energy, Lanxess and Deutsche Post DHL, all keen to expand logistics corridors via Istanbul’s mega-hub. Mobility practitioners should watch for any pilot agreements on fast-track recognition of Turkish vocational qualifications – a long-standing bottleneck under the Skilled Immigration Act. If announced, such schemes could be replicated in other Länder with high Turkish diaspora populations.
Source: Süddeutsche Zeitung / dpa
