Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development · since 6 May 2025Biography & Policy Archive
Reem Alabali-RadovanPeople · Partnerships · Development

Migration, refugees, integration

From December 2021 to May 2025 she was Minister of State at the Federal Chancellery and the Federal Government Commissioner for Migration, Refugees and Integration. This page covers that role. It is a past office; her successor is Natalie Pawlik (SPD).

Method

Three kinds of statement

Migration policy in this period was made by a coalition government and the Bundestag. To avoid crediting or blaming her for everything that happened, each point below is tagged.

  • Government policy

Laws and programmes adopted by the cabinet and the Bundestag, usually led by the Interior or Labour Ministry.

  • Her documented position

What she said or published, quoted from official sources.

  • Institutional responsibility

What the commissioner's office itself produced or was responsible for.

The office

What the commissioner does

The Commissioner for Migration, Refugees and Integration is set up under the Residence Act. The office supports the government's integration policy, reports regularly to the Bundestag, promotes equal treatment and acts as a contact point for migrants, their organisations and the public. It has no authority to issue instructions to ministries and does not draft legislation alone.

Schematic network of five circles labelled language, education, work, citizenship and participation, linked by dashed lines around the word belonging
Fig. 01The fields of integration reporting. Schematic graphic: reemalabaliradovan.com.
  1. 01Integration report 2024
    • Institutional
    On 11 December 2024 her office presented the 14th report on integration, Teilhabe in der Einwanderungsgesellschaft. It measures 60 indicators across 14 subject areas and has an interactive “Dashboard Integration”.
  2. 02Citizenship reform
    • Government policy
    The modernised citizenship law came into force on 27 June 2024. Naturalisation became possible after five years of residence instead of eight, and dual citizenship was generally permitted. The Interior Ministry led the legislation; she supported it publicly.
  3. 03Opportunity residence
    • Government policy
    The Chancen-Aufenthaltsrecht took effect on 31 December 2022. It offered people with a long-term “toleration” (Duldung) a route to a regular residence permit if they met the conditions.
  4. 04Skilled immigration
    • Government policy
    In 2023 the coalition reformed the Skilled Immigration Act to recruit more workers from outside the EU. It was led by the Interior and Labour Ministries.
  5. 05Language & education
    • Reporting field
    Language acquisition, early education and school outcomes are core indicators in the integration report.
  6. 06Employment
    • Reporting field
    The report tracks labour-market participation, recognition of foreign qualifications and income.
  7. 07Local integration
    • Reporting field
    Municipalities carry most of the practical work of reception and integration, a perspective she knew from her years in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
  8. 08Discrimination
    • Her position
    She linked integration policy closely to anti-discrimination; see Anti-racism.
Her documented positions

In her own words

Integration gelingt millionenfach jeden Tag und viel besser, als manch aufgeheizte Debatte das vermuten lässt“Integration succeeds millions of times every day and much better than some heated debates would suggest.” (translation)
11 December 2024 · 14th integration report · bundesregierung.de
Nur mit einem Mindset, das von Offenheit und Zusammenhalt geprägt ist, werden die Menschen, die zu uns kommen sollen, auch bleiben wollen.“Only with a mindset shaped by openness and cohesion will the people we want to come here also want to stay.” (translation)
11 December 2024 · same source
Context & debate

A polarised period

Her term coincided with the arrival of more than a million people fleeing Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, rising asylum applications in 2023, and an increasingly heated debate about irregular migration. After the knife attack in Solingen in August 2024, the federal government tightened several rules, and the opposition CDU/CSU pressed for more.

In that climate she was a visible voice for the integration side of the debate. In September 2024 she accused CSU leader Markus Söder of using “rechtspopulistische Narrative, die wir sonst von der AfD kennen” (right-wing populist narratives we otherwise know from the AfD). In the same month, CDU MPs attacked her office over content on a portal it funded. Details and her response are on the criticism page.

Results and limits

The commissioner's tools are reporting, advice, funding of projects and public voice. The data her office published, including the 2024 report and its dashboard, are lasting outputs. Whether policy became more integration-friendly overall during 2021–2025 is contested. Citizenship and skilled-immigration reform liberalised some rules, while asylum and deportation rules were tightened in the same period.

Sources
  1. Federal Government, 14th integration report, 11 Dec 2024: bundesregierung.de
  2. Federal Government, citizenship law: bundesregierung.de
  3. Commissioner, Chancen-Aufenthalt: bundesregierung.de/ib-de
  4. epd / Evangelische Zeitung, 11 Sep 2024: evangelische-zeitung.de