According to a media report, the interior minister wants to lower the hurdles for German citizenship – among other things by reducing waiting times, keeping additional passports and special regulations for children and the elderly.
Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) apparently wants to significantly reduce the requirements for naturalization in Germany. According to a media report citing ministry circles, children born in Germany to foreign parents should automatically receive German citizenship if one parent has had “the lawful habitual residence” in Germany for five years.
The period required for foreigners to naturalize, which is currently eight years in the country, is said to be reduced to five years. In the case of “special integration achievements”, naturalization is possible after just three years. The obligation to give up one’s previous citizenship is to be abolished.
According to the report, Faeser wants to remove the language certificates previously required for seniors (over 67 years old). Instead, the “ability to communicate verbally” should be sufficient in the future. The previously required knowledge test about Germany is also not applicable to this group. However, the departmental vote on the proposed law is still pending, it is said.
Thorsten Frei (CDU), First Parliamentary Secretary of the Union faction in the Bundestag, criticizes the planned changes. “The German passport must not become junk,” he says. The deputy leader of the parliamentary group, Andrea Lindholz (CSU), adds: “Foreigners in Germany are thus deprived of a great incentive to integrate.”