BRATISLAVA, February 8, (WEBNOVINY)- Following an almost six-hour marathon of talks on Monday, the Coalition Council has accepted an agreement between KDH and MOST-HID on dual citizenship. Prime Minister Iveta Radicova reported that coalition leaders have accepted an agreement between two ruling partners on fixing the current state citizenship law in order that it no longer punishes the citizens.
The parties agreed on Monday that the Christian-Democrats will support a draft amendment to the state citizenship law from the workroom of SDKU-DS, SaS and MOST-HID. In return, the party of Bela Bugar will support the KDH’s suggestion which stipulates that individuals with dual citizenship cannot be employed in security forces. However KDH had to drop the profession of prosecutor from their suggestion. The ban on employment of citizenship with two passports will thus concern only persons who handle classified information. Bugar underscored that such measures apply also in other countries. He added that the ban on executing some posts does not concern only the citizens who acquire Hungarian citizenship but on each Slovak citizen who becomes a citizen of another country.
The ruling coalition’s amendment is to revise the Slovak state citizenship law initiated by the latest Hungarian amendment to the citizenship law, according to which everyone with ancestors from Hungary speaking Hungarian can receive Hungarian citizenship. The government of Robert Fico responded by adoption of an anti-law, which does not allow having two passports. The current coalition’s revision allows dual citizenship but declares the Hungarian law ineffective in Slovakia.
SMER-SD has also submitted a draft revision that should soften the law. It would introduce the possibility of receiving citizenship of another country if applicants’ registered stay in another country lasted for at least six months. The amendment also allows people, who lost Slovak citizenship after being granted Hungarian citizenship, to regain it in a much simpler way than the standard procedure requires.
The group calling itself Ordinary People serving in the parliament in the SaS faction, wants other rules for dual citizenship than those in the current law or those proposed in the draft revision presented by the governing coalition. It wants to allow people who stay, study, are employed or conduct business in a foreign country for a long time or have strong family ties, i.e. parents or grand parents with nationality of another country, to be able to have dual citizenship without losing Slovak citizenship. Bugar said on Monday that they would try to persuade the four Ordinary People deputies to support the coalition’s draft.
SITA