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Will Austria implement easier citizenship rules?

The opposition Social Democrats have called for a relaxation in Austria's strict citizenship rules. Could this happen?

Will Austria implement easier citizenship rules?
An Austrian passport. Photo: Wikicommons

Austria’s opposition SPÖ party (Social Democrats of Austria) is calling for easier access to Austrian citizenship.

As The Local has previously reported, Austria has some of the strictest citizenship requirements in Europe.

The party argues there should be a legal right to citizenship after six years of legal residence, provided all other criteria are met. 

At ten years’ continuous residence, Austria has one of the longest naturalisation processes of any European country. 

COMPARE: Which European countries have the toughest rules for gaining citizenship?

The SPÖ also want children born in Austria to automatically receive citizenship if one parent has been legally resident in Austria for five years

Currently, only children born to an Austrian citizen mother automatically become Austrian citizens themselves at birth.

But if only the father is Austrian and the parents are not married, then an acknowledgement of paternity (Vaterschaftsanerkenntnis) can be made for the child to become Austrian.

In cases like this, children can also have dual citizenship.

The party also called for federal government fees of (currently €1,115 euros) for naturalisation to be canceled and individual state fees, to be standardised at a correspondingly low level.

Under the new plan, the rules would also be relaxed with regard to receipt of social benefits. 

Citizenship would then be open to all those who have not received social assistance benefits in at least 36 months in the past six years.

In addition, the SPÖ want to replace the existing citizenship exam with a course in which participants would help to “make our basic rights and democracy tangible in a participatory way”.

READ MORE: 

Could such a proposal pass? 

The reform efforts come from discussions which started at the SPÖ party conference in 2018 which later morphed into a Migration Working Group. 

The proposals as laid out above were passed unanimously by the SPÖ’s executive committee. 

However, while the centre-right SPÖ may be in favour, the proposals are also subject to significant opposition. 

Interior Minister Karl Nehammer and Integration Minister Susanne Raab (both from the centre-right ÖVP) rejected the plans. 

Herbert Kickl, the new leader of the far-right FPÖ, criticised the plans and said it would bring “new voters through naturalisations on the assembly line”.

Given the opposition, it is unlikely that the plans would become incorporated under the current government, but they may become a key plank in the Social Democrats policies in the lead up to the next Austrian election in 2024 – particularly considering the degree to which they are supported by the SPÖ. 

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2024 EUROPEAN ELECTIONS

From Swexit to Frexit: How Europe’s far-right parties have ditched plans to leave EU

Far-right parties, set to make soaring gains in the European Parliament elections in June, have one by one abandoned plans to get their countries to leave the European Union.

From Swexit to Frexit: How Europe's far-right parties have ditched plans to leave EU

Whereas plans to leave the bloc took centre stage at the last European polls in 2019, far-right parties have shifted their focus to issues such as immigration as they seek mainstream votes.

“Quickly a lot of far-right parties abandoned their firing positions and their radical discourse aimed at leaving the European Union, even if these parties remain eurosceptic,” Thierry Chopin, a visiting professor at the College of Europe in Bruges told AFP.

Britain, which formally left the EU in early 2020 following the 2016 Brexit referendum, remains the only country to have left so far.

Here is a snapshot:

No Nexit 

The Dutch Freedom Party (PVV) led by Geert Wilders won a stunning victory in Dutch national elections last November and polls indicate it will likely top the European vote in the Netherlands.

While the manifesto for the November election stated clearly: “the PVV wants a binding referendum on Nexit” – the Netherlands leaving the EU – such a pledge is absent from the European manifesto.

For more coverage of the 2024 European Elections click here.

The European manifesto is still fiercely eurosceptic, stressing: “No European superstate for us… we will work hard to change the Union from within.”

The PVV, which failed to win a single seat in 2019 European Parliament elections, called for an end to the “expansion of unelected eurocrats in Brussels” and took aim at a “veritable tsunami” of EU environmental regulations.

No Frexit either

Leaders of France’s National Rally (RN) which is also leading the polls in a challenge to President Emmanuel Macron, have also explicitly dismissed talk they could ape Britain’s departure when unveiling the party manifesto in March.

“Our Macronist opponents accuse us… of being in favour of a Frexit, of wanting to take power so as to leave the EU,” party leader Jordan Bardella said.

But citing EU nations where the RN’s ideological stablemates are scoring political wins or in power, he added: “You don’t leave the table when you’re about to win the game.”

READ ALSO: What’s at stake in the 2024 European parliament elections?

Bardella, 28, who took over the party leadership from Marine Le Pen in 2021, is one of France’s most popular politicians.

The June poll is seen as a key milestone ahead of France’s next presidential election in 2027, when Le Pen, who lead’s RN’s MPs, is expected to mount a fourth bid for the top job.

Dexit, maybe later

The co-leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, Alice Weidel, said in January 2024 that the United Kingdom’s Brexit referendum was an example to follow for the EU’s most populous country.

Weidel said the party, currently Germany’s second most popular, wanted to reform EU institutions to curb the power of the European Commission and address what she saw as a democratic deficit.

But if the changes sought by the AfD could not be realised, “we could have a referendum on ‘Dexit’ – a German exit from the EU”, she said.

The AfD which has recently seen a significant drop in support as it contends with various controversies, had previously downgraded a “Dexit” scenario to a “last resort”.

READ ALSO: ‘Wake-up call’: Far-right parties set to make huge gains in 2024 EU elections

Fixit, Swexit, Polexit…

Elsewhere the eurosceptic Finns Party, which appeals overwhelmingly to male voters, sees “Fixit” as a long-term goal.

The Sweden Democrats (SD) leader Jimmie Åkesson and leading MEP Charlie Weimers said in February in a press op ed that “Sweden is prepared to leave as a last resort”.

Once in favour of a “Swexit”, the party, which props up the government of Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, in 2019 abandoned the idea of leaving the EU due to a lack of public support.

In November 2023 thousands of far-right supporters in the Polish capital Warsaw called for a “Polexit”.

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