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Germany removes restrictions on dual citizenship

2024-01-20 10:06:10Kosova&Bota SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX

Germany removes restrictions on dual citizenship

German lawmakers have passed new legislation that eases the rules for acquiring citizenship and ends restrictions on holding dual citizenship. The government argues that the plan will strengthen the integration of immigrants and help attract skilled workers.

Parliament voted 382-234 for the plan put forward by centre-left Chancellor Olaf Scholz's social liberal coalition, with 23 lawmakers abstaining. The main centre-right opposition bloc strongly criticized the project, arguing that it would reduce German citizenship.

The legislation will make people eligible for citizenship after five years in Germany, or three in the case of "special integration achievements", instead of the current eight or six years. Children born in Germany will automatically become citizens if one of the parents has been a legal resident for five years, down from eight years.

Restrictions on holding dual citizenship will also be removed. In principle, most people from countries other than members of the European Union and Switzerland now have to give up their previous citizenship when they acquire German citizenship, although there are some exceptions.

The government says that 14% of the population – more than 12 million of the country's 84.4 million inhabitants – do not have German citizenship, and that around 5.3 million of them have lived in Germany for at least a decade. He says that the naturalization rate in Germany is well below the EU average.

Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said the reform puts Germany in line with European neighbors such as France and pointed to its need to attract more skilled workers. "We also have to make qualified people from all over the world an offer like the US, like Canada, part of which is to get German citizenship," she told reporters before the vote.

The legislation stipulates that naturalized persons must be able to support themselves and their relatives, although there are exceptions for people who came to West Germany as "guest workers" before 1974 and for those who came to communist East Germany to worked.

The existing law requires potential citizens to be committed to the "fundamental free democratic order" and the new version specifies that anti-Semitic and racist acts are incompatible with this.

Scholz said in a video message that, at a time of growing concern about the far-right's intentions towards immigrants, "we are saying to all those who have often lived and worked for decades in Germany, who abide by our laws : You belong to Germany. "The reform will mean that no one will have to "deny their roots", he added.

The conservative opposition claimed that Germany is easing citizenship requirements just as other countries are tightening theirs.


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