'German citizenship in five years': Here’s what new immigration law proposes for immigration

BERLIN - The citizenship rules in Germany are set to become easier as a draft law proposes major changes in this regard.

The changes have been proposed by the Federal government in a newly published draft law and includes shorter and easier path to German citizenship, besides allowing multiple citizenship.

The new rules to the nationality law would be executed after incorporating the suggestions of German states and associations.

The planned changes to the law are: 

• Immigrants legally living in Germany will be allowed to apply for citizenship after five years, rather than the current eight years
• Children born in Germany of at least one parent who has been living legally in the country for five or more years will automatically get German citizenship
• Multiple citizenship will be allowed and the ban would be lifted in this regard

The law also intends to shorten the five-year period to only three years in cases of special integration efforts.

Commenting on the draft law, the Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser branded it one of the most important progress topics in the country, stressing the importance of making these changes in order to attract the skilled workers to plug the gaps in labour shortage. 

Experts say that the ban on dual citizenship which might be lifted is an important development considering that the ban was in place for years. Under the current law, only those with an EU passport or those who have one parent from Germany are eligible to hold dual German citizenship. 

“Many immigrants feel like Germans, but don’t want to completely sever the connection to their country of origin. In the future they will no longer be forced to give up part of their identity. We are completing the long overdue paradigm shift and allowing multiple nationalities,” Nancy Faeser said.

Minister Faeser elaborated that those who are well integrated, speak German very well, do well at work or voluntary work, will be eligible to gain German citizenship by naturalisation after a period of only three years.

“We want to recognise the enormous lifetime achievements of the guest worker generation for our country. That is why we are planning to make naturalisation easier for them,” the Minister further said.

Though the pro-immigration plan is hailed by rights group, opposition center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) holds different view.

"German citizenship is something very precious, and one should treat it very carefully," CDU leader Friedrich Merz told newsmen in a visible opposition to the law.

As far as the stats are concerned, Sweden had the highest naturalization rate 8.6% in 2020 while the rate was 1.1% for Germany. 

Moreover, as per the Federal Ministry of the Interior, about 10.7 million foreign citizens resided in Germany by the end of 2021, with 5.7 million living in the country for at least a decade.