The German lower house voted on Thursday to partially reintroduce a law allowing lower-level-migrants to bring their closest relatives with them to Germany.

From August 1, a maximum of 1,000 additional migrants will be allowed to settle in Germany per month, provided they are direct relatives of refugees already living in the country.

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In March 2016, Germany imposed a two-year suspension on family reunifications for migrants with so-called "subsidiary" status, a lower level of protection that falls short of full asylum. The suspension, set to expire in March, will instead extended by five months, before being lifted in August.

The new migration law was agreed by Germany's two largest parties, Angela Merkel's conservative Union and the Social Democrats, and forms a crucial part of their grand coalition policy blueprint.

Restrictions on families have a particular bearing on many Syrian refugees in Germany, who were only granted subsidiary protection because they were fleeing a civil war and couldn't prove they had personally persecuted. In theory, migrants from Syria with subsidiary status will be required to return home once the civil war is officially over and the German government rules it is safe to go back.

Ahead of the vote, some 100 affected migrants gathered outside of the Bundestag in Berlin, chanting "We are human, too!"

Despite passing in the Bundestag, details to the law still need to be fleshed out. For example, it remains unclear how the 1,000 people permitted to come to Germany will be selected.

The bill also gives the government the power to resettle 1,000 migrants per month but by no means compels it to do so.

FDP chief Christian Lindner: quotas wrong approach

The new law was not welcomed by all in the Bundestag. The head of Germany's Free Democrats Christian Lindner said ahead of the vote that setting a threshold was not the right way deal with migration.

Read more: Report: Germany misses migrant and refugee integration goals

"Quotas are not a means of convincing or inspiring people," Lindner told broadcaster ZDF. The FDP has called for family resettlements to only be allowed in extreme circumstances and to be considered on a case-by-case basis.

"One thousand migrants is not a sensible approach to migration policy," he said. "Why not 500? Why not 2,000? This is simply Merkel's method of finding some kind of compromise."