A large share of the immigrant community in the European Union does not have the citizenship of the country they have settled in. This exclusion can have negative consequences for long-term social cohesion and the legitimacy and representativeness of liberal democracies. Many immigrants are not able to vote in national or regional elections; they may face indirect disadvantages on the labour market or in the education system; they may not develop a sense of belonging in the country of residence without the recognition that they are full and equal members of the national community. These consequences prompt the question of why immigrants naturalise, or more importantly, why they don’t. The project ‘Access to Citizenship and its Impact on Immigrant Integration’ (ACIT) co-funded by the European Fund for the Integration of Third-Country- Nationals (TCN) provides a new evidence base for comparing different elements of access to citizenship in Europe. Four sets of new citizenship indicators measure citizenship across the European Union and identify trends and common challenges in the area of law, implementation, acquisition and the link between citizenship and integration. This information is crucial to identify legal and procedural obstacles for naturalisation. Additional reasons may keep immigrants from naturalising, beyond the legal and procedural requirements.
National roundtables with key stakeholders complement the quantitative results from ACIT citizenship indicators. National roundtables were organised in ten EU countries (Austria, Estonia, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and the United Kingdom), hosting a total of 133 stakeholders, consisting of academic experts, citizenship lawyers, civil servants, politicians and representatives from non-governmental organisations. Participants discussed some of the key issues surrounding the acquisition of citizenship in their respective country: Which factors influence why immigrants become citizens? Which legal and procedural obstacles do they face? How does citizenship affect the integration into society? What is the public discourse on the issue of citizenship? What is the political context for citizenship reform and who are the relevant drivers?
The national roundtables were a key element of the ACIT research project. National stakeholders had the opportunity to discuss the relevance of indicator results in their national context. The indicator results generated fruitful debates among national stakeholders,- demonstrating the importance and value of using this information to improve policies and practices. National roundtables put indicators into practice and reveal perspectives within the citizenship debate that would otherwise remain hidden. These include the personal motivations of different immigrant groups to naturalise, the societal context in the form of public opinion and discourse as well as the question of how party politics affects citizenship reform. Some of these questions are difficult to capture with the results of the ACIT indicators. Yet these difficult to-measure dimensions are indispensable for understanding the acquisition of citizenship. Key stakeholders in EU countries are best suited to tell the story that lies behind the numbers on citizenship.
Citizenship is fundamentally a national debate. Citizenship laws and procedures as well as the political context and public discourse differ greatly across Europe. The ACIT citizenship indicators compare countries’ citizenship regimes and indicate trends across Europe. Indeed, this report finds that many challenges are similar across very different countries. This report investigated the similarities and differences in the citizenship debates and perceived challenges facing policy makers, academics and NGOs in the EU.
