Berlin – The plans of the red-green-red coalition to drastically increase the number of naturalizations in Berlin have met with massive criticism. For naturalization, “the commitment to our values and learning our language is mandatory,” said the deputy state chairman of the CDU Berlin, Falko Liecke, on Tuesday. “The left majority in Berlin wants something else. She wants to soften the prerequisites for naturalization even further and thus ultimately bend the law.
Every year around 7,000 immigrants are naturalized in Berlin. According to the coalition’s ideas, naturalizations should in future be organized centrally in the hands of the state. In addition, the procedures are to be simplified and accelerated – within the framework of the legal provisions, as the coalitionists emphasize. Those concerned should receive a decision after just three months. There are around 400,000 immigrant people in Berlin who have lived and worked here for many years. “But they don’t have one thing: and that is German citizenship,” Franziska Giffey (SPD) justified on Monday at a press conference on the sidelines of the coalition negotiations.
Red-Green-Red hadn’t given any thought to the fact that the districts didn’t meet the requirements for reaching the target number of 20,000 naturalizations per year, criticized Liecke. “This would mean over 1,600 administrative procedures per year per district. Five out of twelve districts had just achieved 300 naturalizations or fewer in the past year. Even the top district of Mitte would have to increase by more than a third to achieve this target number. ”According to Liecke’s estimate, the second-placed district of Neukölln would have to double its naturalization figures. It is completely unclear where the personnel for these naturalizations in the districts should come from. He thinks it is “very likely that the full-bodied objectives simply fail because of the administrative realities in the districts”.
Giffey, who wants to be elected mayor of Berlin in December, was mayor of Neukölln herself. She points out that she herself naturalized 3,000 people during her tenure. So far, each district has handled naturalizations in its own way. Some new Germans pick up the relevant certificate from the office, for others – as in Neukölln – there is a naturalization ceremony. “Everyone should have a decent celebration,” says Giffey. “I believe that this will give us another big boost in integration policy.”
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