Dual Nationality: German Turks lose German citizenship

This problem derives from the new German Nationality Act of 2000. On the one hand, the new law facilitates the naturalisation of migrants. On the other hand, it contains a stricter regime on dual nationality that formerly often was tolerated. Now, someone who obtains another citizenship after naturalisation looses automatically the German citizenship. Turkish authorities report that around 50.000 naturalised Turks reacquired Turkish nationality in the last years.

 

Those who loose German citizenship would loose their residence status, too, and had to apply for residence and work permit as foreign nationals. To get once again a German passport it would be necessary to re-do the full naturalisation procedure including a language test and the proof of a job.

 

The chairwoman of the parliament’s commission for the interior, Cornelie Sonntag-Wolgast, asked the German states (Länder) to handle these cases with less bureaucracy and as fast as possible. The naturalisation procedure should not have to restart from the very beginning. The competent authorities should not require a language test and in these cases unemployment should not be an obstacle. Representatives of the Turkish immigrant community asked the German and the Turkish Government to find a common regulation in order to make possible dual nationality in theses cases. Instead, this is not very likely since Germany aims at avoiding multiple nationality wherever possible.

 

But German authorities only have limited knowledge on cases of dual nationality since there is no agreement according to which Turkey would notify re-naturalisations (yet). That is why in most cases Turkish-Germans won’t have to fear severe consequences (AP, epd, AFP)..