citizenship
Turkish community welcomes citizenship law reform
Citizenship law is to be reformed in Germany. photo
© Fabian Sommer/dpa
The traffic light aims to facilitate the naturalization of people who have lived in Germany for a long time. The opposition criticizes the reform plans and warns of an “inflationary issue of German passports”.
The Turkish community has welcomed the planned reform of the citizenship law. The initiative is a “paradigm shift,” said Gökay Sofuoglu, chairman of the editorial network Germany (RND). “German citizenship law no longer reflects today’s reality; it has to be tackled from the ground up,” he says. It is also about achieving a certain level of equality and thus enabling more people to participate in politics.
The Union, on the other hand, criticized the reform plans of Interior Minister Nancy Faeser. The head of the CSU state group, Alexander Dobrindt, told the “Bild” newspaper (Saturday): “Selling off German citizenship does not promote integration, but has the exact opposite purpose and will trigger additional pull effects in illegal migration.” The CDU member of the Bundestag and interior expert Stefan Heck spoke of an “inflationary issue of German passports” that contained enormous social explosives. Faeser had to stop the plans, he demanded.
Faeser is pushing ahead with a reform of citizenship law laid down in the traffic light coalition agreement – this should make it easier for people in particular who have lived in Germany for several years to be naturalized. A corresponding draft law is “almost ready,” said a spokesman for Faeser on Friday.