FILE PHOTO: People walk at the promenade by the river Rhine with the skyline in the background including the Rheinturm in Duesseldorf, Germany, May 13, 2024. Picture taken with long exposure. REUTERS/Jana Rodenbusch/ File Photo
BERLIN (Reuters) -Germany granted citizenship to a record 291,955 people last year, a 46% increase from 2023, with Syrians making up the largest group, according to data released by the Federal Statistics Office on Tuesday.
Reforms in the citizenship law contributed to the jump, the office said. Last June Germany reduced its residency requirement for naturalization from eight years to five and even three in special cases.
Many Syrians who arrived as refugees during 2015 and 2016 when former Chancellor Angela Merkel opened Germany's borders to hundreds of thousands fleeing war and persecution in the Middle East became eligible for naturalization during 2024.
As a result, they made up the largest group of new citizens, accounting for 28% of all naturalisations, or 83,150 people, a 10.1% increase. They were followed by Turks, Iraqis, Russians, and Afghans, who represented 8%, 5%, 4%, and 3% of the total, respectively.
Russians saw the largest percentage increase in naturalisations, with the number rising to 12,980 in 2024 from 1,995 the previous year. The number of Turks taking German citizenship more than doubled to 22,525.
The new citizenship law also allows individuals to retain their original citizenship while acquiring German nationality, enabling tens of thousands of Turkish citizens — many of whom, or whose ancestors, came to Germany as guest workers in the 1960s and 1970s — to become naturalized.
However, Germany's new coalition government of the conservatives and Social Democrats plans to roll back some of these measures and reinstate a minimum waiting period of five years for citizenship.
The conservatives have said citizenship should come at the end of a period of integration, not "jump-start" it, and fear shorter wait times to become a German citizen may drive increased migration and public resentment.
(Reporting by Riham Alkousaa and Rene Wagner; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)
