The house approved the bill on Friday by a 35-34 margin. Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, whose centre-left administration lacks a majority in the house that represents Germany's 16 states, had hoped to split the conservative opposition to get it through.

With closely forced elections due on September 22, conservatives were keen to present a united front. The result hinged on the eastern state of Brandenburg, which is governed by a coalition of Schroeder's Social Democrats and the conservative Christian Democrats.

Ministers in the state had failed to agree on a common position. Brandenburg's Social Democrat governor, Manfred Stolpe, overruled his conservative interior minister, Joerg Schoenbohm, to vote in favor on the state's behalf.

Other conservatives claimed the procedure made the vote invalid.

Hoping to keep the issue out of the September elections, Schroeder had for months sought a compromise with conservatives. On Friday, Interior Minister Otto Schily made a long appeal to them to give up their opposition.

*Instead of digging in behind prejudices, everyone who has listened and thought the matter over can make a move,* he said.

Last year, a government-appointed commission found that Germany needs tens of thousands of new migrants each year to supplement its aging, shrinking population.

The government said its bill would admit workers needed by German industry and avert a skills shortage. It also would tighten asylum laws and lay down requirements for foreigners to integrate.

It foresees integration courses for long-term foreign residents that would address the German language, culture and society -- with attendance obligatory in cases where their knowledge of the language is insufficient.

Conservatives maintained the government plan would expose the country to a flood of immigrants, worsening stubbornly high unemployment that is already a central election issue as an economic downturn has forced Schroeder to back off a pledge to slash joblessness.

Currently, the country's 7.3 million legal foreign residents account for about 9 percent of the population.

*We can't afford to expand immigration when, in terms of integration, we can't cope with the existing immigration,* argued Schroeder's election challenger, Bavarian governor Edmund Stoiber.

Unemployment, though still lower than under the previous, conservative government, is again on the rise. The total rose to nearly 4.3 million in January, giving a jobless rate of 10.4 percent.

Schroeder set off the debate over a comprehensive immigration bill in 2000 with the launch of a so-called *Green Card* plan offering residence permits to 20,000 foreign computer experts because Germany hasn't trained enough of its own.

*Of course we have an unemployment level that is much too high,* said Kurt Beck, the governor of Rhineland-Palatinate state and a member of Schroeder's Social Democrats. *But parallel to that, we have in a number of areas clear requirements for manpower for people who have particular specialist training.*

In concessions offered to the conservatives last month and rejected as insufficient, Schroeder said the bill would be amended to state clearly the aim of limiting immigration.

Yielding on a central conservative demand, he also said the age at which foreign children can join their parents in Germany would be capped at 12, rather than 14.

Post Extras