Germany makes it easier to obtain citizenship and seeks skilled workers

German lawmakers passed a law on Friday facilitates obtaining citizenship AND ends restrictions on dual nationality. The government claims that the plan will promote the integration of migrants and help attract them skilled workers.

Parliament voted with 382 votes in favor and 234 against the plan presented by the centre-left liberal socialist coalition led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz; 23 deputies abstained. The main centre-right opposition bloc criticized the project claiming that this will make German citizenship cheaper.

The law will allow a person to be entitled to citizenship after five years of residence in Germany or three in case of “special integration results”. Currently the residency requirement is six years. People born in the country They will automatically be citizens if one of your parents has been a legal resident for five years, up from the current eight.

They will also be removed restrictions on dual citizenship. Until now, those who did not came from a European Union country and from Switzerland They had to renounce their nationality before obtaining German citizenship, although some exemptions exist.

The government emphasizes that 14% of the population —more than 12 million of the country’s 84.4 million inhabitants—do not have German citizenship, and around 5.3 million of them have lived in Germany for at least a decade.

In 2022, around 168,500 people have obtained German citizenship, the highest number since 2002 due to number of Syrians which had arrived in the last decade.

Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said the reform puts Germany on a par with its European neighbors such as France, and stressed the need to attract more qualified workers.

“We have to too make an offer to qualified people around the world like that of the United States, like that of Canada, of which the acquisition of German citizenship is part,” he told reporters before the vote.

What requirements are still in effect?

There are claims that will continue to be valid, such as that of support for the democratic order.

Furthermore, from now on it will be required as a condition admit “Germany’s special responsibility for the crimes of National Socialism” and its consequences, especially the obligation to protect Jewish life.

The reform of the nationality law was criticized by the opposition and, for example, the vice-president of the parliamentary group of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Jens Spahn, said that with it there will be millions of people with dual nationality and conflicts of loyaltyprecisely at a time when there is tension in Germany.

According to Spahn, the citizenship law counters the efforts to reduce migratory pressure that led to the reform of asylum regulations, which the CDU considers to be very unrestrictive anyway.

Even the new regulations increases the maximum detention time before expulsion from 10 to 28 days to reduce the possibility that the affected people, once released, escape the control of the authorities.

Moreover, The expulsion of members of criminal organizations will be facilitated and expulsions without notice will be possible as long as families or children under 12 are not affected.

The law also contemplates new grounds for expulsion such as having committed anti-Semitic crimes or having entered Germany with forged documents.

Interior Minister Nancy Faeser told German public television that it was a success that the three coalition parties had agreed on the reform and stressed that it was clear that the restrictions were not easy for the Greens to accept.