Leading economists have criticized the announcement by CDU’s chancellor candidate Friedrich Merz to re-tighten rules for naturalizations in case of a election win.
“Instead, the high bureaucratic hurdles should be abolished and the processing times for naturalization applications should be shortened” said Monika Schnitzer, chair of the Economic Council, to the “Handelsblatt”. “This is a real location disadvantage in the international competition for international specialist and workforce.”
Michael Hüther, director of the German Institute for Economic Affairs (IW), also holds the Union’s new course on naturalizations for wrong. “It is not at all clear which problems the proposal by Merz can solve in the country, but it can create problems” said Hüther to the “Handelsblatt”. Foreigners who have been naturalized are now worried about becoming second-class citizens. “This ultimately weakens the German business location.”
Schnitzer and Hüther point out that a modern citizenship law contributes to solving the skilled labor shortage in Germany. “Extending the naturalization period for newcomers in Germany again would be the wrong way if we are concerned about a successful integration of newcomers into the labor market and society” said Schnitzer. She also noted that most OECD countries have had double citizenship for a long time: “Only Germany, which wants and must be an immigration country, had long been opposed to it.”
Hüther also highlighted the advantages of the naturalization process. Newcomers are equipped with all the rights and duties of the Basic Law in this framework: “This prevents larger groups of people living here from being largely excluded from political processes and public offices in the long term” he said. This must be a modern immigration law that enables.