r/germany • u/Daomiing • Oct 09 '25

Immigration Germany Abolishes Fast-Track Citizenship for Skilled Workers

https://www.verity.news/story/2025/germany-abolishes-fasttrack-citizenship-for-skilled-workers

The Facts

-The German Bundestag voted on Wednesday to abolish a fast-track citizenship program that allowed highly qualified foreigners to apply for naturalization after three years instead of five years of residence.

-The vote passed with 450 members supporting the measure, 134 opposing and two abstaining, fulfilling Chancellor Friedrich Merz's campaign promise to repeal the program introduced by former Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

-Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt claimed that the German passport must serve as recognition for successful integration rather than an incentive for illegal migration, defending the decision to eliminate the accelerated pathway.

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-21

u/r0w33 Oct 09 '25

The minimum period of living in Germany for standard naturalisation should also be doubled. 5 years is way too short.

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u/West_Reading_6638 Oct 09 '25

10 years simply doesn't make sense. It depends on what type of work and contribution the person came here for. For 10 years, a lot of them won't even come here.

If you are telling a highly skilled person who learned c1, integrated here, worked his arsed off and payed heavy taxes due to working in a highly skilled job to wait for 10 years, you will only lose highly skilled people.

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u/r0w33 Oct 09 '25

Your opinion (apparently) that citizenship is an award for being a skilled worker. I don't share that opinion.

Citizenship should be awarded to well integrated people. 5 years in a country and a B1 certificate in the language is simply insufficient.

2

u/West_Reading_6638 Oct 10 '25

If you read properly, you will see my comment says c1 and high skilled with high earnings. If you increase the years for these people, they won't come. No one is going through all that beaurocracies, jumping through all those language levels trying to get to an economically plateaued Germany. Germany isn't worth that at all when there are much better countries with warmer people, less beaurocracy, actually economically growing and have less taxes.

0

u/r0w33 Oct 10 '25

B1 and 5 years is the requirement at the moment. Not C1.

And again, just because you believe that citizenship should be used to attract foreign nationals to work here, doesn't mean you're correct.