The conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, led by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, has decided that it will further pursue tightening Germany's citizenship law this year, with the aim of reinstating an eight year residency requirement.
The decision was made at a party conference held on February 20th and 21st in Stuttgart. There the party also agreed on a number of other political goals that it intends to pursue this year, including: a social media ban for children up to 14, scrapping telephone doctor's notes for sick leave, prohibiting smoking in cars, and pushing for a ban on full face coverings.
For now the CDU's resolutions amount to political ambitions, but, with the conservative party currently leading Germany's federal government, some version of these proposals can be expected to make it into draft laws in the coming months.Â
So how exactly would the CDU reform the Naturalisation Act if they got their way, and how likely is that to happen?
Eight years of residency
The top-line change that CDU lawmakers have agreed to push for is to raise the residency requirement for German citizenship to eight years. In other words, anyone wishing to naturalise as German would need to have lived in the country for at least eight years first.
This would essentially be a reversal to the previous requirement.
For those applying to naturalise through residency, rather than through ancestry or marriage, an eight year requirement had been in effect until the Naturalisation Act was updated in June 2024.
The reform reduced the residency requirement to five years, introduced certain exceptions to the German language requirement for elders and people with certain disabilities, and allowed non-EU citizens to have dual-citizenship.
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Members of the CDU suggest that the current residency requirement is too short. The CDU's resolution says that after five years, "many immigrants are not yet sufficiently integrated into German society."
Stricter examination of applicants' values
The CDU party conference also called for tightening checks before naturalisation to ensure that those seeking citizenship agree with the principles of Basic Law and the "central values of [German] society".
In particular the party suggests that it should be checked that anyone naturalising as German:
- believes in equality between women and men
- has respect for fundamental rights, such as freedom of religion and the protection of sexual identity
- demonstrates a clear rejection of antisemitism and racism,
- acknowledges Germany's historical responsibility for the Holocaust under the National Socialists (Nazis)
Under current rules, applicants for German citizenship already need to make a commitment to the country's free democratic basic order. Cases have also been reported in which people had their citizenship blocked, or even revoked, for having made statements that the authorities found to run counter to one of the points above.
However, the CDU believes the examination of applicants' values should be made tighter.
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How likely is the change?
CDU lawmakers have been pushing for tightening Germany's citizenship law since the Naturalisation Act was reformed in mid-2024. In fact, members of the party had been threatening to reverse the reform even before the law was officially changed.
As The Local has reported, the political reality is that the CDU currently governs alongside the Social Democratic Party (SPD) who had worked to bring forward the liberalisation of Germany's Naturalisations Act. So the CDU is unlikely to find support for reversing the reform within its own federal coalition government.
Ahead of the last federal election, the CDU had made limiting dual citizenship and tightening other requirements a central part of their campaign platform. After the election they had to walk those goals back substantially in the coalition agreement they made with the SPD.
They did, however, succeed in one citizenship-related campaign promise -- to scrap fast-track citizenship after three years, which had been available for exceptionally well-integrated candidates.
If the CDU were to proceed, and bring a draft law for a further change to the Naturalisation Act forward, it would need the support of a majority of lawmakers in Germany's legislative chambers (in both the Bundestag and Bundesrat) before it could be signed into law.
READ ALSO: 'Nonsense' - Why scrapping dual citizenship would counter the German government's goals
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