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After 45 minutes of debate, members of the German Bundestag voted in favor of a new historic German citizenship law. 382 members voted in favor of its adoption, 234 were against it, and 23 abstained.
The new law means that people who have lived in Germany for just five years will be eligible for a German passport. They will also be able to retain their original citizenship and have dual citizenship. In cases where potential citizens demonstrate impressive achievements in their work and speak German at level C1, they will be able to apply for citizenship after just three years.
Elderly people and children will also benefit from the new law. Once introduced, residents who are over the age of 67 will no longer have to prove their B1-level language skills and will no longer have to take a naturalization test to obtain citizenship.
The rules will also be relaxed for children born to foreign parents in the federal republic, who should soon be eligible for a passport if at least one of their parents has been legally resident in Germany for at least five years at the time of the child's birth.
Now that members of the Bundestag have voted to approve the law, it will go to the Bundesrat, which represents the interests of the 16 German federal states.
The coalition government believes that this legislative stage should be nothing more than a formality. This is because the planned changes to the citizenship law will be adopted at the federal level and do not concern the budget or amendments to the German constitution (Grundgesetz). Even if the members of the Bundesrat wanted to, the chamber would not be able to prevent the new law from passing into force.
The next Bundesrat meetings are scheduled for February 2 and 22. Now that the new citizenship law has passed through the Bundestag, any of these dates could be the date when President Steinmeier is asked to enshrine the law. The law is expected to come into force in April 2024.
Source: I am Expat
Photo by Fionn Große on Unsplash
