Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser today signed a comprehensive migration and mobility partnership agreement with Kenya on behalf of the Federal Government. Kenyan President William Ruto and Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz also attended the signing ceremony. The agreement will boost regular migration by skilled workers while at the same time ensuring quicker returns of Kenyan citizens required to leave Germany.

Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser said: "We are very pleased about the migration agreement with Kenya that we were now able to conclude. Thank you very much to our Kenyan partners for the good cooperation! We want to rigorously enforce the return of people who have no right to remain in Germany – that is an important component of curbing irregular migration. We have reached good agreements for achieving this. At the same time, we want to attract the skilled workers that we urgently need in many sectors of our economy. And we are opening up new opportunities for vocational training and higher education in Germany."

Dr Joachim Stamp, Federal Government Special Commissioner for Migration Agreements, said: "Kenya is an important partner for us in East Africa, and its location makes it especially significant geopolitically. Through this joint agreement, we are addressing immigration by skilled workers as well as all the important points of migration cooperation. I thank our Kenyan friends for the very constructive talks. The migration agreement provides an excellent foundation for further cooperation."

Two rounds of negotiations in spring 2024 in Berlin and Nairobi preceded the signing of the agreement. The German delegation under the leadership of Special Commissioner Dr Stamp was comprised of representatives of the Federal Ministry of the Interior and Community, the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Federal Foreign Office and the German Embassy in Nairobi.

Germany and Kenya have agreed to established a bilateral working group for the implementation of the agreement.

The agreed cooperation on returns is an important part of the agreement. Kenya became the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to agree to use biometric data to identify migrants required to leave Germany. It will also accept expired passports and identity cards as travel documents to enable returns, and will grant a longer period of validity for passport substitutes.

The agreement’s provisions on immigration by skilled workers largely reflect the principles set forth in the new Skilled Immigration Act. The agreement also provides for cooperation partnerships in the area of vocational training and the bolstering of immigration for the purpose of studying in Germany.