Welcome to the first issue of The Compass Dispatch. I have been sitting on this newsletter for a while, telling myself I would launch it when the timing was right. The timing is never right. So here we are.
What's Happening
The EES is live. Did anyone notice?
The EU's Entry/Exit System became fully operational on April 10, after a phased rollout across 29 Schengen countries that started last October. It replaces passport stamping with biometric registration (fingerprints, facial image, entry and exit dates) for all non-EU nationals traveling on short stays.
For most of my clients, this does not apply directly: residence permit and long-stay visa holders are exempt. But if your team includes non-EU employees traveling regularly in and out of Schengen, or candidates mid-process, border crossings just got slower and more unpredictable. Processing times increased by 70% at some airports during the holiday season rollout. Worth factoring in before your next hire's first business trip. 🙃
The Spotlight
Tempelhofer Feld, the housing crisis, and who gets to define the problem
There is a debate happening in Berlin right now that is being framed as a question about urban planning. It is not. It is a question about who the city is for.
A plan to build over 21,000 apartments on Tempelhofer Feld has been presented, in some quarters, as good news for newcomers who struggle to find housing in Berlin. And the struggle is real. Research shows that people with foreign-sounding names face systematic discrimination in the German rental market: more rejections, less access, higher housing insecurity. That is a documented problem and it deserves to be taken seriously.
But building thousands of apartments, 70% of which would be market-rate, on one of the last large public green spaces in the city is not a solution to that problem. It is a real estate opportunity dressed up as social policy.
The answer to housing discrimination is structural: anti-discrimination enforcement, rent controls that hold, and a state that takes its responsibility to house people seriously. Not a referendum that benefits private developers while offering newcomers a fraction of what they actually need.
Foreigners are disproportionately hurt by Berlin's housing crisis. They deserve a real solution. Tempelhofer Feld belongs to everyone who lives here, including the ones who just arrived. 🌿
What’s new with me
This month I attended a webinar on AI and relocation, and I left more open to it than I went in. I have been skeptical of AI for a while, mostly because of who builds it and what assumptions get baked in along the way. But seeing people in our industry use it thoughtfully shifted something. I am starting to explore where it actually helps the work rather than just replaces the human part of it.
I also joined the paradiGM Community this year, which has already connected me with people in the industry I would not have otherwise met.
Worth reading:
20 Percent Berlin covers the Tempelhof debate with the kind of local detail and dry wit that national outlets rarely manage. A good complement to what I wrote above if you want more Berlin context.
DW on housing discrimination against immigrants in Germany is where to start if you want to understand the real housing problem rather than the Tempelhof headlines.
Until next time
I have been in New York for the past couple of weeks, enjoying the best of the city - Dunkin’ and air conditioning ☀️Heading back to Paris in a few days to a leaking bathroom.
See you in the next one.
Charlotte
