The Ministry of the Interior and Home Affairs has presented a draft bill to reform naturalization law. According to the bill, naturalization should generally be possible after five years of legal residence, and after just three years in the case of special integration achievements – for example in terms of language or professional skills.

The draft bill also aims to make naturalization easier, particularly for the guest worker generation, by making it sufficient to provide proof of oral German language skills from the age of 67 and dispensing with the requirement to prove knowledge of the legal and social order and living conditions in the Federal Republic (“naturalization test”). Furthermore, the principle of avoiding dual citizenship should no longer be upheld. More than two thirds of people who are naturalized are already able to keep their previous passport.

Such a reform is urgently needed, as the number of naturalizations in Germany has been stagnating for years and is far below the average in the European Union: 10.7 million people with foreign citizenship currently live in Germany (see figures from the Federal Institute for Population Research). This is the highest figure since evaluations began in the early 1970s. The permanent exclusion of such a large population group from citizenship rights leads not least to a democratic deficit. Nevertheless, the proportion of naturalizations in this country has stagnated at a very low level for a long time: only 2.45% of people who have lived here for at least ten years were naturalized in 2021. While on average around 2% of the foreign population in the EU were naturalized in 2020, the figure in Germany was only around 1.3%. Sweden led the way in naturalization with 8.6%, followed by Portugal and the Netherlands with 5.5% and 4.8% respectively.

As a study by the “Global Governance Programme” of the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute has shown, naturalization is a real driver towards integration in terms of income, housing, lower unemployment and better educational opportunities. However, this effect only occurs if naturalization takes place within a period of 4-6 years after immigration. The pre-residence period of eight years currently stipulated in German law is therefore too long for the proven positive effects.