Verlenging naturalisatietermijnen

Reactie

Vraag1

Opinion and suggestions of a knowledge migrant in tech paying _enormous_ amounts of taxes.

1. The effect of the change looks exactly opposite to the goal.
The mere possibility of it already made learning Dutch language not a first priority. I.e. I would love to learn Dutch if I had spare time, but I work hard paying all the bills and taxes so I just have to be selective on what to spend my time on. With requirement of 10 years there will be no incentives to integrate in the first 8 years, and for many people like me it may become completely not worth it. As a result there will be even less Dutch in the streets.
2. Longer residence requirement itself will probably not reduce immigration a lot, but it will definitely reduce economy growth, knowledge, capital and tax payments.
I don't believe that the change itself will affect asylum or benefit seekers as they likely have nothing to lose and not a lot of choice anyway. But it will definitely affect the ones contributing to the community and major taxpayers as they do have choice. I was planning to stay here, pay all the taxes and use all the knowledge and capital for the benefit of Dutch economy in exchange for political representation and predictability. Now I don't believe that I'm getting the benefits anymore, so it only remains to leave the Netherlands and make people of some other country wealthier.
The same happens already to big businesses: Shell, Unilever and others are moving out. Partially due to less qualified workers in the Netherlands making it too expensive to hire and run business here. Eventually it makes services like healthcare less accessible, and citizens poorer due to less highly-paid jobs.

Now suggestions:
- For integration it would be better to allow dual citizenship instead. That will make a reason to integrate for EU nationals and many others not willing (or unable) to just renounce other citizenship(s).
- Another option is to shorten residence requirement in case of a better language level and/or passing a civic integration exam earlier. Also adding a work period/tax requirement may motivate to integrate faster and improve economy as well.
- If the need to raise residence term is inevitable then for the benefit of Dutch citizens and economy it will be crucial to establish a two tier system(like in UK/Germany earlier) with much shorter residence requirement for knowledge/business/contributing immigrants.