BERLIN: Germany's
Bundestag
lower house of parliament has approved a government proposal that would ban the wearing of full-face veils for public servants while they are at work.
The bill was proposed last year by security officials from German Chancellor
Angela Merkel's conservative bloc. They argued that wearing the burqa or other face-covering veils in public schools, courts and other situations compromised public servants' neutrality, and that in many cases it is important for their identity to be known.
The law also applies to soldiers.
The law passed the lower house of Parliament late on Thursday and still needs upper house approval.
More than a million migrants, many of them Muslims from the Middle East, have arrived in Germany over the last two years, and concerns about integration are widespread.
"Integration also means that we should make clear and impart our values and where the boundaries of our tolerance towards other cultures lie," German interior minister Thomas de Maiziere said. "The draft law we have agreed on makes an important contribution to that."
In February, the southern state of
Bavaria
, ruled by the
Christian Social Union
(CSU) - the Bavarian sister party to Merkel's conservatives - said it would ban the full-face veil in schools, universities, government workplaces and polling stations.