Verlenging naturalisatietermijnen

Reactie

Vraag1

I object to this proposal.
This proposal has also been assessed in 2017 where the Senate rejected the extension to 7 years on the grounds that the longer waiting period does not promote integration, but is instead counterproductive.

In many EU Member States, the 5-year period is maintained as a reasonable balance between social integration and access to full citizens' rights for example Belgium, France, Portugal and Ireland, who all have a requirement of 5 years of legal residence for citizenship. An extension to 10 years would make the Netherlands one of the most restrictive countries in Europe.

For people considering moving to NL, they will see this rule as NL going in the opposite direction to other countries that are making the process simpler and easier. 10 years will certainly discourage integration as there is less of a sense of urgency to learn the language and integrate. It then leaves people feeling like outsiders for too long and becomes a lesser attractive country as compared with others in the EU and globally.

For people already on Highly Skilled Migrant (MVV) visa
This can be discouraging for people who have been contributing meaningfully to the economy and paying taxes here for years and feel at home in the Netherlands. It is unfair to change the goalposts when they made the decision to come over on the existing rules.

Personally, we moved to the Netherlands close to 4 years ago under the Highly Skilled Migrant scheme. In deciding to relocate, we evaluated a few countries, an important factor of this evaluation was the current naturalisation rule that allows us to apply for Dutch citizenship after five years of residence.

The new proposal to extend the residence period from five to ten years makes no mention of a transition period. This means that people in a similar situation to us, who are already far down into our five-year trajectory, would suddenly see the goalposts moved during the process. This is unfair and disadvantages us as we have planned our future on this basis. We would therefore request a transition arrangement for people already in NL on highly skilled migrant visas.