The German Interior Ministry confirmed to The Local Germany that parliamentarians will soon discuss a draft law on allowing dual citizenship.

People in Germany who want to naturalize as Germans and keep their first citizenship now have a date when the Bundestag will consider their situation and that is before Christmas.

“Immigrants who want to stay permanently in Germany should be given the opportunity to participate and make a full contribution through naturalization. The modernization of the Citizenship Act aims to create the right framework for this,” a spokeswoman for the Federal Ministry of the Interior told The Local.

“Multiple citizenship should generally be permitted. For naturalization, it will therefore no longer be necessary to give up previous citizenship.”

According to the Ministry, the new law will also shorten the time someone must live in Germany before becoming eligible for citizenship through naturalization. People who show evidence of integration into German society will also have a shorter waiting time for naturalization, as an incentive.

This news marks the beginning of the end of a long wait for many residents of Germany – who had been postponing obtaining German citizenship because of the general requirement to give up their previous citizenship.

Exceptions were available only to those whose other citizenship was from the European Union, those from countries that do not allow renunciation, and those who applied for special permission to keep their original citizenship due to hardship – often a long and bureaucratic process.

A “modern” citizenship law

While other countries, such as Denmark in 2015, had already liberalized their dual citizenship laws, Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) remained firmly against it.

As Germany’s dominant political force, many long-term residents of Germany had almost given up hope that the law would change.

However, the 2021 coalition agreement between the Social Democrats (SPD), the liberal Free Democrats (FDP), and the Greens – froze the CDU out of the federal government for the first time since 2005 and reawakened some hope among these residents of Germany.

The three parties expressed their intention to reform German immigration law to allow dual citizenship. But over the past year they had not confirmed when they might pass a new law – until now.

“The SPD has long advocated modernizing citizenship law and adapting it to the reality of our immigrant society,” Sebastian Hartmann, chair of the SPD contingent within the Bundestag’s Interior Affairs Committee, tells The Local.

“Even today, due to legal exceptions, many naturalization decisions are made by accepting multiple citizenship. We will end this unequal treatment so that everyone can be naturalized in the future without having to give up their citizenship.”

Filiz Polat, the Greens’ spokesperson for migration and integration in the Bundestag, told The Local that allowing dual citizenship is a change that was “long overdue.”

“A modern citizenship law is essential for an immigration country like Germany,” she says. “Citizenship will become a lasting bond of legal equality, participation, and belonging.”

Stephan Thomae, the FDP member of the Bundestag’s Interior Affairs Committee, said that naturalization will be possible after five years, rather than the current eight. With proof of special integration – including knowledge of the German language – a naturalization applicant should be qualified after three years.

“People who come here, build a life for themselves, and feel a lasting connection to Germany should be naturalized quickly,” he told The Local. “We want people who live with us, who have integrated well linguistically, legally, economically, and culturally, who contribute to the success of our society and fulfill their responsibilities – to also have the associated rights and let us make them a permanent offer of integration.”

Thomae also said that the FDP wants the reform to be accompanied by a campaign to familiarize potential Germans with their new rights, helping to encourage naturalization.

While all three governing parties agree on the general principle of allowing multiple citizenships, long-term residents of Germany who want to naturalize should still expect a little legal wrangling.

For one thing, it is still not clear how many smaller details they still have to resolve.

One potential open question is how far citizenship should extend across generations. Although the children of naturalized Germans would not have to give up both citizenships, Thomae said there should be clear rules on whether the grandchildren of naturalized Germans should have to choose a citizenship if they are already entitled to another one.

Neither the Interior Ministry nor members of parliament yet want to confirm exactly when they expect the new law to come into force. However, long-term residents in Germany will probably still have to wait a little longer as the Bundestag fine-tunes the draft law before adopting it.

“The Federal Ministry of the Interior is currently preparing this draft law and we will examine it carefully,” says Hartmann. “If the Government makes its expected decision in December, we should be able to complete the parliamentary procedure by summer 2023 at the latest.”

If, as expected, the new law is adopted in summer 2023, the old rules may continue to apply for a short time – to ensure that civil servants are ready for the new rules. The exact waiting period will likely become clearer when the Bundestag begins debating the draft law.

Source: fenix-magazin.de