The lower house of Germany's parliament on Friday passed a bill to speed up asylum procedures

It is intended to offer well-integrated foreigners who have been living in Germany for several years without a secure status a chance to stay in the country long-term.

Those who have lived in the country for five years by the deadline of October 31, 2022, and have not committed a criminal offence will be given 18 months to fulfil the requirements for long-term residence. This includes, for example, knowledge of German and securing one's own livelihood.

The three governing coalition parties - the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), the Greens and the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) - voted in favour of the bill.

The CDU/CSU opposition conservative bloc, the hard-left Die Linke (The Left) party and the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) rejected it.

In the final debate, the CDU/CSU accused the coalition of rewarding rejected asylum seekers who had not contributed to the clarification of their identity for years. In the end, they would be better off than honest foreigners who disclosed their identity and could thus be deported more easily.

In principle, the bill maintains that residence should only be granted if the identity is clarified. However, it also offers this possibility if a foreigner has "taken the necessary and reasonable measures to clarify his or her identity."

During the parliamentary consultations, the FDP had insisted that only those who have spent at least one year in Germany with a tolerated status after completing their asylum procedure can benefit from the new regulation.

In this way, the FDP wants to prevent a person from being considered for long-term residence after a very long asylum procedure and a deportation that failed due to practical hurdles.

Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser of the SPD said: "We are ending the current practice of a succession of toleration decisions. In doing so, we are also putting an end to the uncertainty that often lasts for years for people who have long since become part of our society."

Asylum seekers will also be able to take advantage of counselling independent of the authorities. Civilians who are not employed by the government are to be entrusted with counselling in the asylum procedure and receive money from the federal government for this.

In the future, the asylum procedure hearing may be conducted in exceptional cases by means of video and audio broadcasting.

The asylum appeal procedures at the administrative courts, which according to the federal government currently take an average of 26.6 months, are also to be shortened.

Among other things, a standardization of jurisdiction is to help shorten the procedure.

The aim is that frequently occurring cases of the same nature - for example, those involving conscientious objectors from Syria or refugees already recognized in Greece - will no longer be assessed differently by different higher administrative courts.

Instead, these courts will be able to refer the cases directly to the Federal Administrative Court, which will then make a decision of a guiding nature. Whether this will actually have an accelerating effect is, however, doubted by several experts and politicians in the opposition.

According to the German Interior Ministry, 135,603 first-instance proceedings were pending nationwide as of July 31 this year.