As in recent years, naturalisations in Austria again declined significantly in 2010. With a mere 6,190 naturalisations the number reached an all-time low since 1973, when 6,183 persons had been naturalised. Defined as a percentage of the number of legally resident foreigners in Austria, the naturalisation rate is now at 0.7%, the lowest since 1961. In 2003 the naturalisation rate was at an all-time high of 6.0%.
Since the 1970s naturalisation figures had risen continuously up to around 10,000 per year in the 1980s, and up to around 25,000 in the 1990s. Naturalisations reached their peak in 2003, when 45,112 persons became Austrian citizens. Whereas in 2004 and 2005 naturalisations still stayed at a high level of 42,174 and 35,417 respectively, they started to decline in 2006, when a significant amendment to the Austrian Citizenship Act entered into force. Whereas in 2006 still 26,259 persons were naturalised – many of them still under the old Nationality Act – the number of naturalisations has dropped massively since 2007 falling to less than one fourth of the 2006 level.
The rise in naturalisations from 1999 to 2003 as well as their decline since 2006 may be explained at least partly by demographic factors – the majority of refugees from the wars in Yugoslavia had reached the ten years of residence required for naturalisation – and by the effects of the public debate on forthcoming restrictions on naturalisations triggering a rush to naturalise under the old conditions. Since the start of the new millennium migration from the old and new EU Member States outnumbers the traditional “sending areas”, the successor states for the former Yugoslavia and Turkey. The lower propensity of EU citizens to naturalise may be a further (weaker) explanatory factor for the decline. However, the restrictive provisions of the Nationality Act of 2006 are mainly to blame for this trend. The provisions of the Nationality Act, which had again been tightened in 2010, are going to be restricted even further this year due to a reform of the Aliens Law. As the Nationality Act links the language requirements for naturalisations to requirements for a permanent residence permit determined by the Aliens Law, the reform of that law will raise the language requirement for naturalisation to level B1 of the EFRL and thus have direct effects on the number of future naturalisations.
Since 2006, strict residency requirements (ten years of continuous legal residence), strict income requirements and a naturalisation test have been introduced as requirements for naturalisation. Naturalisation by marriage to an Austrian citizen was made dependent on a combination of residence and marriage duration. Adult family members also need to pass the naturalisation test to be naturalised by extension of naturalisation.
Since 2010, income requirements have again been tightened. Now the income to be proven for the last three years has to reach at least the level of the minimum retirement pension, plus regular payments, in particular the costs for renting a flat, energy and telephone bills and alimony payments, where applicable. A lump sum of EUR 250 may be deducted. These harsh income requirements are cited as the most important hurdles for naturalisation in recent qualitative studies (Perchinig 2011, Reichel 2010).
The data do not only show a clear decline of naturalisations since 2007, but also a shift of the quantitative relevance of the grounds of naturalisation. Whereas until 2006 naturalisations based on a legal entitlement[1] always had been the least important category, this has becoame the most important category since 2007, whereas the extension of naturalisation to family members – until 2007 always the largest number – dropped to second place. Ordinary naturalisations after ten years of residence (17,519 or 38.8% of all naturalisations in 2003) dropped to last place in 2010 (1,158 or 18.7% of all naturalizations).[2]
At first sight, naturalisation tests seem to have primarily self-selection effects – around 95% of the candidates pass at the first taking of the test. A closer look reveals, however, a significant decline of the number of extensions to spouses. Whereas in 2003 out of a total of 21,876 extensions of naturalisation to family members, 4,868 (22.2%) had been granted to spouses, the figure went down to 264 (12.9%) in 2010.
This decline particularly concerns women, who ever since account for around 85% of this category. In 2003 naturalisation was extended to 4,019 women, but only 279 women were granted naturalisation by extension in 2009 (no gender breakdown available yet for 2010). The figures correspond to observations of NGOs that women – who most often are less fluent in German than their husbands – meanwhile tend to refrain from naturalisation due to the language requirements.
A comparably drastic decline can be observed with regard to naturalisations based on marriage to an Austrian citizen. Between 1999 and 2006 the figures oscillated between 2,500 and 3,700 naturalisations per year, but came down to a mere 671 in 2010. As demographic aspects do not count in this category, the decline can be explained solely by the harsher requirements imposed in the Nationality Act of 2006.
The decline in naturalisations, which is mainly due to the reform of the Nationality Act in 2006 and 2010, seems to be an effect of a distinct policy to prevent the access to stable residency for third country nationals. For the first time since the 1990s, the draft of the reformed Aliens Act, which will probably enter into force in 2011, foresees a withdrawal of a temporary residence permit in case of loss of income. As a permanent and legal residence of at least five years is a necessary precondition to get access to a permanent residence permit, periods of unemployment or low income might in future prevent third country nationals from access to a permanent status.
Read the Statistik Austria report on the decline of naturalisations in Austria (in German).
References:
Perchinig, Bernhard: The Integration Agreement in Austria – symbolic policy or a conflict over ideological discourse dominance? Forthcoming in: Yves Pascouau (ed.): Which Integration for Migrants? Interaction between the EU and its Member States. Den Haag (Kluwer Law).
Reichel, David 2010: Staatsbürgerschaft und Integration – die Bedeutung der Einbürgerung von MigrantInnen in Hinblick auf ihre soziale und ökonomische Integration. University Vienna, Diss.phil.
Footnotes
[1] 30 years of residence in Austria, 15 years of residence and “sustained integration”, six years of residence in Austria and birth in Austria, or nationality of a Member State of the European Economic Area, or status of a recognised refugee.
[2] Calculations based on data provided at the webpage of Statistik Austria: http://sdb.statistik.at/superwebguest/login.do?guest=guest&db=deeinbuergerungen