BRATISLAVA, July 16, (WEBNOVINY) — The highest number of people have given up their Slovak citizenship for Czech citizenship, namely 149 over the past two years. This stems from information provided by Alena Koisova from the Interior Ministry’s Communication Department. On Tuesday, July 17, it will be two years since the amended law on state citizenship, based on which a citizen loses his/her Slovak citizenship by willingly accepting a citizenship of a different country, took effect.
Slovak citizens applied also for Austrian citizenship, namely 37 people, while 34 people applied for German citizenship. 25 people became Hungarian citizens in the monitored period. 17 people became U.K. citizens and 10 people U.S. citizens. In the past two years, a total of 296 persons lost their Slovak citizenship due to acquiring a foreign one. In the same period, 631 persons became Slovak citizens. In line with the law, a citizen has to report the loss of citizenship to the respective municipal office. The ministry could not say how many people were sanctions for failure to fulfill this duty.
The Interior Ministry plans to amend the legislation on state citizenship. According to Koisova, the ministry will present its draft in the second half of this year. The new wording of the legislation should enable acquiring a foreign citizenship without the loss of Slovak citizenship to people who lived in that country for a certain period of time. People who get a new citizenship without ties to the country, will still face the threat of losing the Slovak citizenship. Some opposition parties can imagine support to such Cabinet proposal.
The amendment to the Citizenship Act based on which a citizen of Slovakia automatically loses his/her Slovak citizenship after being granted another country’s citizenship based on an expression of his/her free will came into force on July 17, 2010. It was adopted in reaction to the Hungarian act that enables the acquisition of Hungarian citizenship even to people that do not have permanent residence and have never lived in Hungary. It is enough if they have Hungarian ancestors.
SITA
