Publications
Additional changes to nationality law planned
press release 06 May 2019
The Federal Minister of the Interior intends to bar polygamous marriages for persons who wish to become naturalized citizens
In a first step towards amending nationality law, the Federal Cabinet adopted a bill presented by the Federal Minister of the Interior, Building and Community on the Third Act Amending the Nationality Act, implementing a provision of the Coalition Agreement. If passed, the amended legislation would make it possible to revoke the German citizenship of persons holding an additional nationality who have fought on the side of terror militias abroad, as by doing so they have clearly turned their backs on Germany and its fundamental values and have embraced a terror militia instead. This Third Act is urgently needed, so this bill was introduced first, before the Federal Ministry of the Interior, Building and Community proposes additional amendments to the Nationality Act.
These proposals will include requiring acceptance of German social norms as a prerequisite for naturalization, which would explicitly prohibit polygamous marriages (those in which a man has more than one wife at the same time) by persons who wish to become naturalized German citizens. Additional amendments would extend the time period for revoking unlawful naturalizations to ten years from the current five, and would require applicants for naturalization and their nationality to be identified without a doubt as a condition for naturalization.
The Federal Minister of the Interior and his counterparts in the federal states have already reached unanimous agreement on this point.
"Those who wish to become naturalized German citizens must accept German social norms, in particular the prohibition on polygamous marriages, and their identity must be securely established. This is absolutely necessary before they can be granted German citizenship,"
Federal Minister Seehofer said in Berlin today.
