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Slovak Parliament Adopts State Citizenship Amendment
Wednesday 26 May 2010 Zoom in | Print page
Bratislava, May 26 (TASR) - As of July 17, Slovak citizens will lose their citizenship in two cases - if they willingly decide to give it up or if they apply for the citizenship of another country, according to an amendment to the State Citizenship Act that was approved by Parliament on Wednesday with 90 votes out of the 115 MPs present in the House.
In the final vote of the current Parliament, the legislation was backed by Smer-SD, the Slovak National Party (SNS), LS-HZDS and the opposition Christian Democrats (KDH).
The amendment proposal came in response to a piece of legislation approved by the Hungarian Parliament on Wednesday morning. Under the amendment passed by Budapest, the rules will become easier for any ethnic Hungarian living outside Hungary who decides to apply for Hungarian citizenship as his or her second one.
Slovakia's legislation also stipulates that automatic losses of citizenship status won't apply to cases in which people acquire dual citizenship via marriage or birth.
Slovak citizens will lose their citizenship automatically on the same day that they acquire a second one.
"Dual citizenship is an undesirable phenomenon in view of the fact that granting another one amounts to a person's attachment to two countries simultaneously. Due to the rights and duties that this attachment introduces, serious problems may occur in practice," said Premier Robert Fico. According to him, the negative effects of such a move will multiply not in individual cases, but when dual citizenship is granted on a mass scale.
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