Hurray! It’s a happy day. But before we are getting really excited. Know that there is still some opposition to really modernize the legislation. In the 2017 coalition agreement, there were also plans to somewhat modernize the nationality legislation, but that did not happen. But maybe now it is different, let’s look at it positively. Please note that in the meantime the law will remain as it is. And legislative changes can sometimes take years. And possibly also be sabotaged by certain politicians. But now, think positive and here’s the good news.
The coalition agreement called “Looking after each other, looking ahead to the future” of the VVD, D66, CDA and ChristenUnie are the New Year’s resolutions that the parties have agreed upon. It states:
“The Netherlands Nationality Law leads to undesirable problems in some situations. We revise the automatism whereby Dutch people with multiple nationalities outside the EU territory (after ten years) lose their Dutch citizenship and make it for them easier to retain Dutch citizenship in addition to their other nationality, or for those who lost it after 01 April 2003 to regain it.”
Please note that as far as we read this is only about loss due to the 10-Year Clock, but possibly loss when acquiring another nationality can also be read into this? That was at least the plan in 2017, so!? But as I read it, it seems that the Netherlands still wants to stick to the single-nationality principle. However, they do want to get rid of the automatic loss of nationality caused by the so-called 10-Year Clock (current version 3), which many had unwittingly become victims of.
It would be nice if we could quickly adapt the legislation, because people are still becoming victims of unintentional loss of their nationality without realising this every day. What we do read in the agreement is that it may be possible to regain the nationality aw well. But that only for those who became the victim of the 01 April 2003 fools day joke. It looks like the government doesn’t want to look at version 2 from 1985-2013. Of course, a line has to be drawn somewhere, which is effectively those who lost their nationality after 01 April 2013. But it would have been more reasonable to have included version 2 which came into effect on 01 January 1985. Because that amendment of the law also resulted in the same kind of situations. We will see, politicians can possibly still look at this when drafting the proposed amendment to the law.
Again, this could possibly take years. Inform yourself well about what your situation is, was, and what other possibilities there are. After all, there are already a few (sometimes very difficult) routes to regain your nationality. If you want to know more, please contact us.
