Ferdinand Weber: Misconceived Modernity. European and international law aspects of the German Act on the Modernization of Nationality Law. Nr. 2024/3.
The parliamentary procedure in Germany which led to the recently published Gesetz zur Modernisierung des Staatsangehörigkeitsrechts (Act on the modernization of nationality law, in the following ‘Modernization Act’)[1] was held during a time of unrest. Demonstrations surrounding Israel and Hamas, statements from the Turkish president and anti-Semitic incidents, including their acclamation, fuelled a question central to any immigration country (like Germany)[2]: What can law contribute to an overall sense of belonging in a political community? Rules on acquisition and loss of nationality law are one among others but nevertheless an important factor in this context. Besides its symbolic function, nationality grants the right to vote in national elections, thus full political membership. The state of Saxony-Anhalt, for example, reacted to the unrests surrounding Israel and Ghaza in larger German cities – while the parliamentary procedure at the federal level wasn’t even finished – by strengthening the grounds for exclusion from naturalization of anti-Semites via administrative decree already in November 2023[3] which underlines the connection between societal eruptions and questions of political membership.
The Modernization Act entered into force at the end of June 2024 and is primarily concerned with modifying acquisition criteria. The expert hearing in the German Parliament’s Committee on Internal Affairs raised numerous questions and doubts here, inter alia with a view to the principle of legal certainty and practicability regarding rules which aim to tighten the grounds for exclusion from naturalization by anti-Semitic, racist or other inhumane behavior. Similar debates emerged on the tightening of the requirement to secure one’s own subsistence, the reduction of residence periods for naturalization and ius soli-acquisition and finally the competent authorities’ work overload which is likely to disappoint expectations of faster administrative procedures after the Modernization Act entered into force (for different perspectives see the expert opinions, accessible via the Bundestag’s Committee)[4].
Besides those points, other problems have largely been under the radar, especially in the Federal Government's draft bill motifs.[5] This applies to some complex aspects of international and European Union law in particular. This article aims to briefly examine them, primarily the international law implications of an unconditional and unlimited admission of multiple nationality.
The working paper is available for download here.
[1] BGBl. 2024 I No. 104, 26 March 2024, https://bit.ly/3KsJc1t.
[2] Compare the contributions in the recently released book (edited by Daniel Thym) ‘Germany as a Country of Immigration’, 2024, in German, accessible via https://bit.ly/4cCMvz0 (OpenAccess).
[3] See Hinweise zu den §§ 11 und 12a Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetz (StAG) zum Erlass des Ministeriums für Inneres und Sport des Landes Sachsen-Anhalt, 29. November 2023, accessible via https://bit.ly/4cJczIZ.
[4] Deutscher Bundestag, Committee of Internal Affairs and Community, https://bit.ly/45GMjMZ.
[5] Gesetzentwurf der Bundesregierung, Entwurf eines Gesetzes zur Modernisierung des Staatsangehörigkeitsrechts (StARModG), BT-Drs. 20/9044 of 1. November 2023, https://bit.ly/3XDtrMT.
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