New Delhi, May 16 (IANS): Indians were among more than 13,000 spouses of asylum seekers in Germany who failed to join their partners in 2022 due to a lack of sufficient language skills, according to a report.

According to Germany's Foreign Office, one in three spouses, or 13,607 people, failed the German language test last year to qualify for family reunification, the InfoMigrants reported.

Reaching a basic A1 level of German language competency, which involves listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills is a prerequisite to join a spouse in the country.

A total of 71,127 people received a visa for spousal reunification in 2022, including people who had passed their tests in previous years. Of these, a total of 40,165 people passed their exams successfully, according to figures released by the Foreign Office.

A total of 8,930 people came from India, followed by 8,778 people from Turkey, and 5,006 from Lebanon.

The failure rate was the highest among Ethiopian nationals, with around 61 per cent not succeeding with their exams.

The latest number of failure rates were revealed after a member of parliament from Germany submitted a written question to the federal government.

The Foreign Office said that each year for the past few years, between 8,000 and 10,000 visa applications for spouse reunification have been rejected or withdrawn, the Info Migrants reported.

Following this, a draft law in 2022 was introduced by the opposition to enable the language test required to be completed after the spouses have arrived in Germany.

In December, Germany's government decided to relax the rules for skilled personnel whose partners were allowed to enter the country without a language test.