Despite the lack of direct comparability, the fees levied for national passports (and identity cards) shall serve as a starting point for the analysis in order to contextualise the fees foreigners have to bear. A standard German passport costs 60 Euro, whereas an ID card is 28, 80 Euro. A fee of 28, 80 Euro is also charged for a certificate confirming the right of permanent residence (Article 16 of Directive 2004/38/EC) of a third-country family member of a Union citizen. The fee for naturalisation in Germany amounts to 255 Euro, which is comparably low compared to 1282 GBP in the UK. Moreover, the paper looks at other financial requirements, for example the income requirements highly-skilled migrant have to meet in order to be eligible for a residence permit
Finally, the paper explores the role of non-monetary requirements, such as language skills or the foreigner’s ‘integration’ into the host society, and the influence these factors have on the legal status sought by the foreigner. If money does not seem to matter in Germany like in the UK, what values are key to German migration governance and how can the difference be explained?
