See: Access to Nationality Rankings
The best case
This is a composite of the best policy practices from the MIPEX normative framework of high European standards. Each of these practices was found, as of 1st March 2007, in at least one of the 28 countries.
The state values migrants as citizens-to-be and facilitates viable pathways to nationality as an indispensable means of integration. A migrant is eligible for nationality after three years of legal residence. Any of her descendents born in the country are dual nationals at birth. Being tied to the country by residence or by family are the sole criteria for becoming a national. The only condition for applicants to prove is that they have not been convicted of serious crimes specified in law. She is secure in her new status, since she can only lose her citizenship within a five-year-period if she is found guilty of having committed fraud to acquire it. Yet a withdrawal cannot go forward if it would make her stateless. She is allowed to choose whether or not to keep her original citizenship.
The worst case
This is a composite of the worst policy practices that MIPEX found, as of 1st March 2007, in at least one of the 28 countries.
Restrictive policies keep full equal rights and responsibilities out of reach. A migrant of the first generation is only eligible after periods much longer than five years. His children and grandchildren face numerous requirements to become citizens of their country of birth. If he has a minimum income, no health insurance or a spot on his criminal record, he cannot become a national citizen. Authorities decide whether or not he is ‘integrated' through conditions like a mandatory course and high-cost written test that demands a high-level knowledge of the country's language, history, society and culture. He is insecure in his new citizenship compared to his fellow nationals. The state can withdraw it without taking into account many aspects of his personal life or giving him legal avenues for redress. Withdrawals can happen at any time and on numerous grounds, even if this means he would become stateless. He and migrant children born in the country cannot become dual nationals.
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OBSERVATIONS
Eligibility for nationality has the lowest average and the lowest high score of all 24 dimensions. Most countries do not facilitate naturalisation for first-generation migrants. European-born children most often face unfavourable additional requirements for becoming citizens of their country of birth. Most oaths and ceremonies do not involve requirements that can exclude migrants from participating or receiving their citizenship. Partially insecure under the law, many naturalising migrants can have their application refused or nationality withdrawn on many grounds, without any time limits. Only a few countries fully allow migrants to hold dual nationality.
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MIPEX normative framework
- Council of Europe, European Convention on Nationality, (Strasbourg, 1997) http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/en/Treaties/Html/166.htm.
- Bauböck, Rainer, Ersbøll, Eva, Groenendijk, Kees, and Waldrauch, Harald, The Acquisition and Loss of Nationality in 15 EU States (Amsterdam University Press; Amsterdam, 2006).
