The German Social Democrats, the Greens and the Liberals agreed on a government coalition and presented their program. One point of this is the radical reform of migration policy, which will change Germany forever.
The coalition agreement states that the coalition intends to introduce multiple citizenships and to simplify the path to citizenship.
Traditionally, dual citizenship is not allowed in Germany, unlike the United States or Hungary. If someone wants to be German, he has to give up any other citizenship. Children born in Germany of dual-citizen parents were an exception to this. When they reach adulthood, they do not have to choose and can keep both their citizenships. Since 2000, the rule has applied to more than 1.5 million people, who can thus remain dual citizens.
However, for those immigrants who were not born in Germany but moved there, until now the rule applied that they could only get German citizenship if they had spent at least 8 years in the country, spoke the language, knew the constitution, had not committed a crime, and renounced the about the citizenship of their country of origin.
That's about to change.
The coalition plans to reduce the time one must spend in the country to qualify for German citizenship from eight to five years. This can be reduced to three years if the applicant can prove that he has settled in well (which in practice means that he speaks some German).
Most importantly, applicants do not have to renounce their previous citizenship. The new rule means a change especially for Turks. Until now, the German citizenship rules have mainly been a problem for them, because on the one hand many of them are quite attached to Turkey and might want to move there when they retire - but also because Turkey did not allow its citizens to renounce their citizenship until 2009. Since then, Turks who renounce their citizenship receive a "blue card", which also serves as an identity card, with the previous identity card number on it. This document grants them most of the rights enjoyed by Turkish citizens, with the exception that they cannot vote and do not have to do military service. With the blue card, they can get their Turkish citizenship back at any time.
in 2020 approx. 1.5 million Turkish citizens lived in Germany (excluding Turks with German citizenship). If the new government implements the citizenship reform, most of them will immediately be entitled to German citizenship. This will increase the voting base in the German elections. Based on previous election behavior, this would benefit the SPD and the Greens, while the Christian Democrats would be at a disadvantage.
Boris Kálnoky's full article HERE .
