Parties Agree to Revamp German Citizenship Law
Declaring Germany “a country of immigrants,” the newly elected governing partners reached a landmark agreement Wednesday to promote the integration of immigrants by modernizing the nation’s 85-year-old citizenship law.
Chancellor-elect Gerhard Schroeder’s Social Democrats and their junior partner, the Greens, said they intend to give automatic citizenship to German-born children of foreigners if one of their parents has been living in Germany since age 14.
They also agreed on dual citizenship and on shortening foreigners’ eligibility for naturalization to eight years from 15.
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