NEW Democracy leader Antonis Samaras (L) announced his party’s intention to completely overhaul ruling Pasok’s latest immigration law as soon as his party comes to power. Pasok’s law in March of this year opened a path to the automatic acquisition of citizenship for a child born in Greece whose parents have been legally and permanently residing in Greece for at least five years. Samaras has harshly criticised the law. He says he wants to make the rules stricter.
“The children of illegal immigrants who are born here should be granted the right to citizenship when they come of age, but they must first choose between the Greek and the citizenship of their parents’ homeland,” Samaras told an Athens conference on international immigration that was organised by his party on July 5.
He also said that only the immigrant children who have completed the first nine years of basic schooling (from kindergarten to secondary school) will be allowed to apply. Under the current law passed by Pasok, the immigrant children are eligible to apply for citizenship if they have completed at least six years of schooling in Greece.
According to Samaras, Pasok’s immigration law is “the worst mistake at the worst possible moment”.
In parliament last June, Samaras had warned the automatic granting of citizenship to immigrant children born in Greece would “make pregnancy a means of naturalisation”.
“The automatic citizenship will become a real magnet for the mass influx of immigration,” he had added.
Legislation previous to Pasok’s law made no mention of immigrant children born and raised in Greece. To be eligible, all immigrants had to prove they had lived in Greece legally for 10 continuous years in the 12 years preceding the date of their application. They had to be over 18 and could not have a criminal record or a deportation order issued against them.
Greece is a jus sanguinis, or “right of blood”, state that only recognises citizenship by blood. A person’s citizenship is determined by his or her parents’ citizenship, so only those with blood ties to Greece may be Greek citizens.
