EJust a few days ago, the traffic light government had agreed on a reform of citizenship law, which should shorten the deadlines for naturalization. This Tuesday, the Federal Statistical Office reported that around 168,545 foreigners became Germans in 2022, which is a high in the past twenty years. In the 1990s, however, there were already more than 300,000 naturalizations. Such developments are never monocausal. Even the legal framework only plays one role among several.
In the Kohl era, for example, in which the strongest increase has been recorded to date, the naturalization law was restrictive. Guest workers should remain guests, that was the self-understanding. Despite this, 31,500 Turks were naturalized in 1995 alone. “Officially, Germany was not an immigration country, but the authorities found pragmatic solutions in legal backrooms,” says Daniel Thym, migration researcher at the University of Konstanz. Legally, that was quite possible, discretionary naturalization already existed anyway, since the asylum compromise of 1993 there was also a right to naturalization under certain conditions.
Many EU citizens do not exercise their right
Law teacher Thym identifies a second reason for the high numbers in the 1990s: the late resettlers from the former Soviet Union and other Eastern European countries made use of their right to naturalize in Germany. After 1999, naturalization was no longer required for them; German citizenship was automatically granted with recognition as a late repatriate. Since then, they no longer appear in the naturalization statistics.
This led to an immense decline in the numbers, which more than compensated for the increase in naturalizations due to liberalization during the red-green government. In other words: if the late resettlers were excluded from the calculations, the curve would rise a little after the year 2000. At that time, the period for naturalization was reduced from 15 to eight years. Other legal changes meant that naturalizations were no longer necessary. The birthplace principle (ius soli) was introduced at that time: after the change, children of foreign parents who were born in Germany could also acquire German citizenship. This initially entailed the obligation to decide between the German and the foreign nationality of the parents when they reached the age of 18. This optional requirement for Ius Soli children was dropped in 2014.
In the following years, the number of naturalizations leveled off at around 100,000 naturalizations per year, although significantly more people were entitled to it. Thym speaks of an “unused potential”. This affects, among other things, EU citizens who do not make use of their right to become German, although they could keep their previous citizenship. “The main added value is the right to vote, which is not important enough for many,” says Thym. The British in Germany are a special case: after Brexit in 2016, many opted for naturalization. There was an increase in the number of Ukrainians after the start of the war, and in 2022 the number of naturalized Ukrainians tripled to 5,600.
Most of the recent increase, however, is due to the naturalization of refugees. Around 48,300 Syrians were naturalized in 2022, making up almost a third of the total number. Many refugees who entered the country after 2014 now meet the requirements for naturalization. On average, Syrians stayed in Germany for 6.4 years before they received a German passport. The current period is eight years, which can be reduced to six years if integration is good. However, spouses and underage children can also be naturalized without a minimum length of stay. In 2022, 15,400 Syrians took advantage of this opportunity.
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