By IPS Correspondents
BERLIN, Dec 3 1999 (IPS)

The German government has begun a massive publicity drive to encourage foreigners, often living here for generations, to apply for German citizenship under a new law which comes into effect on Jan 1 2000.

In the capital, placards of a Turkish boy with the famous quote from former US president John Kennedy -“Ich bin ein Berliner” (I am a Berliner) – have already gone up all over the city. Another of a group of friends of different ethnic backgrounds has the caption “typical Germans”.

Under the new law, German nationality will no longer only be granted only to those who can prove blood ties. Long-term residents, and German- born children of foreign nationals will also have the right to a German passport.

The campaign includes billboards, concentrated in 25 cities which have a large proportion of foreigners, large newspaper advertisements and brochures. A special multilingual telephone hotline has been set up to answer queries. The government says red-tape will be cut throughout the application process.

But different rules in the different German states (Laender) and inadequate guidelines on how to interpret the law threatens to cause chaos and delay the issuing of passports. It may also deny passports to foreigners who will qualify for citizenship in some states but not in others.

This week the interior ministries of the 16 states federal German states agreed after much acrimonious wrangling on guidelines to interpreting the law, particularly on how language tests are to be administered.

But this is considered far too late in the day. The guidelines must still go through the Bundesrat, the upper house of parliament on which State governments are represented and which is dominated by Conservatives opposed to the citizenship law itself and likely to insist on the tightest interpretation of the guidelines.

Federal Interior minister Otto Schilly announced this week that as part of the guidelines applicants for citizenship must be able to show that they are “loyal to the Constitution” and can “cope with daily life” in German surroundings. This means they must pass a language test to qualify for citizenship.

When citizenship law was drawn up amid much controversy and anti-foreigner hysteria in some states, it was left to the states to interpret how to ascertain or test these aspects. The centre-left Social Democrat and Green ruling coalition felt it would be enough for applicants to talk to the authorities without an interpreter.

In particular written language tests – which some conservative- ruled states are demanding – are considered to be a problem for immigrants as written German style is different from spoken German and requires a high degree of accuracy in what is generally agreed to be a complex grammatical system.

The Turkish League (TBB) said Wednesday “there are a large group of first-generation Turks who fulfill the conditions on integration and who could be given nationality but who can only make themselves understood orally, but not in writing.”

The 16 state interior ministries have now agreed that applicants must be able to read a German newspaper and recount the contents orally. A spokesman for the Federal Interior ministry admitted that this rule meant a “significant tightening compared to the previous legal situation.”

The Citizenship law merely states that applicants must demonstrate “adequate” knowledge of the language.

Some believe deeply conservative southern state of Bavaria deliberately used delaying tactics to prevent any clear guidelines being agreed in time. Bavaria was insisting on special language “qualifications” issued by language schools and language courses for which many foreigners would have to pay.

Even after the agreement between the states this week, the Bavarian Interior ministry has said that until the federal guidelines on language testing are passed into law in March or April next year it will apply its own stringent language rules. And Green party politician Cem Ozdemir, a German-born Turk, admitted nationalisation practices in the different states would still vary widely.

Marieluise Beck,federal advisor on foreigners issues, insisted however that the states’ “room for manoeuvre” in applying their own rules had been much reduced.

Even with an eleventh-hour agreement on guidelines less than a month before local authorities will begin processing the applications, confusion reigns within town halls. Many town halls believe the guidelines will be amended futher during its passage through the upper house, and further delays are not inconceivable.

“If we don’t get the final guidelines of how to administer the tests soon, there will be chaos,” said Gaby Ziegenhagen, head of the Citizenship Unit of Schoeneberg district in Berlin. “It is completely unclear who will be entitled to citizenship at the beginning of next year, and who won’t.”

“We still don’t have any explanations of how the citizenship law is to be interpreted” said Manfred Nowak, district office chief of Wedding, a working-class area in Berlin with a large Turkish population.

The effect will be to delay processing the applications until the guidelines come into legal force, prolonging the wait for citizenship.

Nonetheless, Marieluise Beck, , said the country hoped to register more than one million new citizens next year, more than triple last year’s number.

The ruling centre-left coalition believes the new law, passed earlier this year after months of acrimonious debate and bitter opposition by the conservative Christian Democrats will help integrate the 7.3 million foreigners who make up nearly 10 percent of Germany’s population. One in five was born in the country.

“It can’t be good for a democracy when such a large part of the population is excluded from democracy and democratic rights,” Beck said.

However opposition parties fear the eased citizenship entitlement is merely a ploy by the Social Democrats to enlarge the left-wing electorate as most foreigners are workers and more likely to vote for the ruling Social Democrats.

Beck noted that some 100,000 children are born each year in Germany to parents of other nationalities resident here, and there are another 700,000 children under the age of ten who can obtain passports if they apply within a year.

Of the total number of foreigners some 2.1 million of them are Turks, many of whom have been here for two or three generations. Half of all foreign residents have lived in Germany longer than ten years, one third longer than thirty years.

The law allows children born on German soil to hold the nationalities of each of their parents and a German passport until age 23, when they must choose one. Only in rare cases can adults hold dual citizenship. The period for naturalization for adults will be cut to eight years of residence from 15 at present.

Since the campaign was launched last month some 50 per cent of the 2.1 million Turks resident in the country have applied or say they will apply for citizenship. Those who have not applied are mainly older Turks who do not want to give up their Turkish passports for sentimental reasons, the authorities say.

The authorities believe that citizenship will allow Turks to invest more in the German economy. At present, two thirds of property owned by German-resident Turks is in Turkey and a third is in Germany. Researchers at the Centre for Turkish Studies in Essen predict this ratio will be reversed in a few years.

Another study by the Centre showed that 56 per cent of Turks expect to spend their retirement years in Germany rather than Turkey – a high indication of propensity to take out citizenship, according to Faruk Sen, head of the Centre.

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