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Justice Minister: relax dual citizenship law
Published: 19 Feb 13 10:22 CET | Print version
Online: http://www.thelocal.de/national/20130219-48053.html
Pressure is increasing for Germany to expand its dual citizenship laws to enable people from Turkish and other backgrounds to have two passports. Now the justice minister has spoken out in favour of a change.
The rule does not apply to children who have one parent from an EU country - they can retain their dual citizenship.
One young woman from Darmstadt, whose family is Turkish, experienced exactly that recently, Der Spiegel news magazine reported. She forgot to relinquish her Turkish passport before her 23rd birthday and lost her German citizenship as a result.
The magazine said the rule will affect more than 3,000 people this year, but that by 2018, this figure will rise to more than 40,000 each year. An investigation by the Office for Migration and Refugees suggested that 88 percent are likely to opt to become solely German at the expense of their other citizenship.
And now, five months ahead of the general election, junior coalition partner the Free Democrats (FDP) have put the topic firmly back on the daily political agenda.
Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger called on Tuesday for the laws to be changed. She told Der Spiegel's website, "Integration can be promoted by dual citizenship, as shown by the many cases of well-integrated citizens with dual citizenship."
She said the current situation where people have to choose, needed to be checked if it led to people turning their back on Germany.
"We should not rule out a further modernisation of the citizenship laws and put dual citizenship on a broader legal basis," she said.
The Local/hc
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Your comments about this article:
As to the woman who "forgot" to relinquish her Turkish citizenship. How could such a momentous thing be "forgotten"? Did she also "forget" her Einkommensteuererklaerung? I bet she didn't "forget" her BAföG application.
You can only be on one side OR the other when it comes to a critical event. Or claim support in age or need only from ONE state - not twice. Also on voting: You can only participate once.
Or if you get in trouble abroad: Who is responsible for you to get you home?
If you do not like Germany enough to give up the Turkish nationality - stay Turkish.
If you want to be fully integrated - give up your Turkish nationality.
The exception are minors - so under 18, you should keep both chances to be able to decide.
There is no need for raisin picking.
TheWonderer
Relatively few countries believe what you think. The big exception is the USA (due to 14th Ammendment), and even the USA looked like it was going to possibly end that practice . . . . until the GOP lost the past election, mostly due to their poor election performance with recent immigrant groups in the USA.
Here in the EU, I believe Ireland was one of the last countries in Europe to grant citizenship to anyone born there, and as far as I know, they ended that practice about 5 - 6 years ago. So nowhere in the EU today is citizenship granted to someone simply because they were born within the country's borders. The Irish actually voted to end that practice in a referendum, which won by a big margin, despite liberals being quite upset and unhappy that citizens would be allowed to have a vote on something like that.
Also, the idea of forcibly denaturalizing German citizens -- people who have been German citizens since birth -- has a really bad precedent in German history. There has got to be a better way to handle this.
I see integration as an entirely different issue. The fact that someone has chosen a given nationality does not mean that they will automatically integrate into that country's culture.
The only way dual citizenship seems like a fundamentally bad idea is if we assume it will exclusively be taken by the lazy, long term unemployed or criminals.
And now they want to open this mainly for the Turkish case (so many Turkish in Germany that will never give up the Turkish citizenship for the German one as they do not like Germans). But now Germany is struggling with business while turkey is booming.. And here u see why Germany is opening dual citizenship for Turkish.. So that they can try to keep them and pay retirement of old Germans instead of seeing them flying to booming instanbul.
Dual nationality is a bad idea. It only creates a class of people with split loyalites, which this story proves. Turks (I mention since this story is obviously about them) in Germany want both because they have no intention to integrate into German society. Those that do want to integrate could care less about a Turkish passport.
Bottom line: There is no advantage to Germany to allow dual citizenship.
Think about it, it works for everyone or nobody!
The Government is only concerned with one thing.................MORE MONEY IN THEIR POCKETS NOT YOURS. So if they can make money from Dual Citizenship it will happen here. If not.......................................no chance!
In my example my kid has 3 nationalities, why should he give up one???
There are advantages , they can go the US for University, work or to live with out any need to apply, or stay here and do the same,choices most of us do not have.
And in most countries, that is exactly how it is.
"Also, the idea of forcibly denaturalizing German citizens -- people who have been German citizens since birth -- has a really bad precedent in German history."
My wife born and raised in Berlin, would be considered a foreigner in Germany if she went back there as she is now a naturalized US citizen. Her two son's, 10 & 13 years, likewise have blue passports and citizenship certificates granted as one of their birth parents (Her) is a US citizen. Before she left, she inquired about maintaining her German citizenship. She was told she could apply to do so but it would only be approved if she was heiress to a large estate or such in Germany, or if she was married to a foreign diplomat. (I am not always very diplomatic so that was out....) So, apparently is either about money or who you are....or who you know.....
At the same time, I think we all know there is a cultural underflow to this. Germans who live in the US have no problem fitting in, and the Americans I know who went to Germany when in the military and never returned to the US permanently likewise assimilated to Germany. I don't think it's news that many of Germany's "guest workers" have never assimilated and have no desire to do so. The fact that there are whole districts in various German cities where German police do not go unless it's in large numbers pretty much illustrates the level this problem has risen to.