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- cross-posted to:
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Summary
Germany’s incoming coalition government, led by the CDU/CSU and SPD, will abolish the 3-year expedited citizenship path for “well-integrated” immigrants, introduced in 2023.
Critics labeled the policy “turbo” naturalization and argued three years was too short.
The standard 5-year path with B1-level German remains, and dual citizenship will continue to be allowed.
The coalition dropped proposals to revoke citizenship from dual nationals deemed extremists, opting instead to focus on expulsion measures for non-citizens who threaten democratic order.
Smaller cosmopolitian countries tend to have looser immigration laws to accommodate the period influx and exodus of their populations. One of the supposed virtues of the EU was to make trade and travel easier without requiring people to give up and reacquire citizenships every time they move across a border or change a job.
But then a smattering of NATO states decided to start carpet bombing the Middle East, dominoes started falling, climate change took its tool, and now you’ve got mass migrations of millions fleeing the fallout. And Germans are freaking out over it, in no small part because the old Fash-Heads of the prior generations have found a way to gain political leverage by hitting the PANIC button over and over again.
I had thought easy immigration to EU countries was only if you were coming from another EU country. I had been interested in Hungary for a while since I spent some time there and loved it and have friends there. But that was pre-Orbán and it wasn’t part of EU then either. Dunno about now.
It varies by state. My wife got her Italian citizenship through birthright, despite being born American, for instance.
Yes that’s another approach, if you have ancestors from that country. A friend of mine got Irish citizenship that way. But I’m talking about randos, like from the Middle East, or worse, the US.
A lot of the “randos” are people with strong business or social relationships in member states. Italy has a big expat community already thanks to the large number of finance bros and engineers that contract with Italian domestic industry.