Germany towards easing citizenship-taking procedures

Chancellor Olaf Scholz said through a video message, on November 26th that Germany has long since become the “Hope Place” for many people and is a good thing when people who have established roots in the country decide to take citizenship.

“German needs better rules for the naturalisation of all these big women and men”, Scholz said.

Reviewing citizenship rules is one of a series of modernisation reforms that the three-party Social Democrats' centre-left Schelz coalition agreed to handle when it took office last December.

The Interior Ministry said Friday that the bill is “ready for”.

Last year's coalition agreement requires that people be eligible for German citizenship after five years, or three in the event of a separate <x0-> integration performance”, instead of eight or six years of actual order.

German-born children will automatically become citizens if one parent has been a legitimate resident for five years.

The government also wants to lift restrictions on maintaining dual citizenship. In principle, the majority of people from other countries besides members of the European Union and Switzerland currently have to give up their former citizenship when they gain German citizenship, although there are certain exceptions.

Interior Minister Nancy Fyser argued that reducing the waiting time to qualify for citizenship is “an incentive for integration”.

The goal is to reflect reality, she said Friday.

“We are a diverse, modern immigration country and I think the legislation should reflect this”, Faeser said.

Official statistics show that about 131,600 people received German citizenship last year, a quarter of them citizens of other EU countries.

The number was 20 percent higher than a year ago, in part because an increasing number of Syrians were naturalized. Germany's general population is about 84 million.

The main bloc of the centre-right opposition Union rejects plans to liberalise naturalisation laws. / REL