Double citizenship rules under discussion

Jan 23, 2013
From wire reports

GET IN LINE: Urmas Paet says legislationneeds to reflect the reality of Estonians with dual citizenship.

TALLINN - Foreign Minister Urmas Paet said at a government press conference on Jan. 17 that the Foreign Ministry has made a proposal to consider changing the citizenship law to allow double citizenship to those who are Estonian citizens by birth, reports Delfi.

Currently the Estonian citizenship law doesn’t allow double citizenship, but the Constitution doesn’t allow withdrawing Estonian citizenship from anyone who acquired it by birth. This means that currently, Estonian citizens by birth have to give up one of their citizenships by choice when they become adults.

“Today and for the past 20 years the real situation is that the majority of Estonian citizens who live somewhere else have double citizenship,” said Paet. “On the one hand there is a legislative conflict, and on the other hand I see no real reason why Estonia should keep its co-citizens, who permanently live elsewhere in the world, in a state of stress and say that maybe they should start giving up one citizenship,” said Paet.

Paet added that the discussion on this issue was started to keep the legislation in line with real life. He said that the problem keeps increasing since Estonian citizens marry citizens of other countries whose children also have to make a choice between the citizenship of their mother and father, which he doesn’t think is justified.

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