SINT MAARTEN/THE NETHERLANDS – The anti-immigration PVV is working on draft legislation which would make dual nationality impossible for Dutch passport holders, party leader Geert Wilders said on Tuesday.
The aim is to ban people from having a second nationality, he said. ‘As long as you are Turkish, you can’t become Dutch,’ the Telegraaf quotes Wilders as saying. News of the PVV bill came after it emerged that Dutch Turks voted by a large margin to give more powers to Turkish president Erdogan in the recent referendum.
Some 250,000 Dutch Turks were eligible to vote but only around 80,000 did so. Wilders admitted it will be complicated to legislate against dual nationality but said the Turkish law which makes it difficult to give up Turkish nationality is ‘nothing to do with me’.
The PVV legislation will apply to ‘everyone, but Turks first and foremost,’ Wilders said. Some 1.3 million Dutch nationals hold a second nationality.
Two passports
At the end of last year, the Liberal democratic party D66 and the Labour party PvdA submitted draft legislation to parliament which would allow Dutch people to keep their Dutch passports if they adopt a second nationality.
Currently, Dutch nationals who take a second nationality lose their right to a Dutch passport, while most foreigners who become Dutch are required to reject their original nationality.
The proposal, submitted by Labour MP Ahmed Marcouch and D66’s Sjoerd Sjoerdsma, states that the current Dutch position on dual nationality is out of steps with the times. People can apply to become Dutch after living in the Netherlands for five years, or three years if married to a Dutch citizen – if they have gone through the correct integration procedures.
However, the government is planning to increase this to seven years. That legislation is pending approval in the senate.
