German art of regulation

Germany moves to regulate kebab industry;

Now that maddeningly persistent German virtue known as order is being imposed on the untidy kebab. The Vocational School for Gastronomy and Nutrition here is offering a six-month course that in July will award the first kebab diplomas, officially known as Meat Processing Doner Kebab Production Specialization. If there is poetry in bureaucracy, the Germans have yet to stumble upon it, but the point is to regulate a loose market of vendors and producers.

And that, surprisingly, may improve integration in a country where more than 2 million Turks live in what many consider a parallel world. The aim is to enhance the image of the kebab industry and give its workers, most of whom are first- and second-generation Turkish immigrants with limited educations, training toward better opportunities.

"In Germany if you are not integrated in the labor market, you are not integrated," said Metin Harmanci of Entrepreneurs Without Borders, an organization that advises immigrant businesses and seeks equality in the workplace. "It's difficult for immigrants to enter the labor market. It was easier in the past when Germany needed guest workers, but now that kind of work is gone and there are fewer chances."

Skeptics in the German media view the plan as noble but Sisyphean. The website for Deutsche Welle radio put it like this: "While encouraging young people to get a start in life with a vocational qualification is a worthy cause, one would have to search high and low to find a pursuit that is less appreciated and undervalued by the customer in the fast-food sector than the high-quality preparation and presentation of a kebab."