Nationality nightmares

Never in a million years did I ever think I would hear myself saying that I wish our daughters had rights to German citizenship. I was always more than adamant that they should be British and Spanish; just like us.

As a family, we are very much citizens of Europe. I am a British citizen (to one Scottish and one English parent), born in Belgium. My husband is a Spanish citizen, born in Spain. Our daughters were both born in Germany. I assumed that, by default, our children would both be entitled to all three nationalities and be able to choose their preferred European nationality at the age of 18. How wrong was I!

Our daughters, despite being born in Germany, are not entitled to the German nationality. German nationality law is based on jus sanguinis. Citizenship is not determined by place of birth in this case, but by having one or both parents who are citizens of the German nation. You can naturalise as a German citizen if you have been resident in Germany for at least eight years and possess adequate knowledge of German, etc. Only then, after renouncing to your existing nationality (Germany does not allow dual nationality, can both you, your spouse and your children apply for citizenship. This contrasts with jus solis: right of soil, which is applicable in the UK, meaning you are automatically entitled to British citizenship if you were born there.  

Neither my husband nor I have been living for eight consecutive years in Germany, so getting our hands on German passports for ourselves or our children is a no go. No problem, we thought. When our first daughter was born, we got her a Spanish passport. My husband would say this was by choice; I say it was because it was cheap! Registration and a new Spanish passport at the time cost a mere 16 Euros. British registration and passport on the other hand was going to cost a massive 300 Euros. The process was quick and efficient and we had the passport within a month of our first daughter’s birth.

Two years on with the birth of our second daughter, we wrongly assumed the process would be similar. We not only need a new passport for our newborn, but a passport renewal for our older daughter, whose passport has run out after two years. My husband phoned the Spanish consulate to get an appointment to apply for the passports. The earliest date he was offered was the end of May and the passports would then arrive in July sometime. Due to the crisis and cuts, the process now takes 4 months! This obviously isn’t really an issue if you don’t want to travel, but we want to go to the UK before July and we planned to fly to Spain.

No problem, we thought, third time lucky, we’ll just apply for the British one instead. I phoned the consulate in Düsseldorf and was referred to the UK Border Agency. I then found out just how complicated British nationality law is. Because I was born abroad, I got my British citizenship by descent. This type of citizenship cannot be passed down to your children when they are also born abroad. My daughters therefore have to apply for British citizenship and be accepted before any passport can be issued; a process which takes around 4 months.

So, ironically, despite theoretically being entitled to three different European nationalities, two of the countries have rejected us and the third won’t give us a passport until the middle of the year. Luckily there is a (painful) solution and that is to drive 16 hours to where my husband was last resident in Spain and apply for the DNI (Spanish ID cards) which allow travel within Europe.

I am left with a couple of open questions. What would have happened if my husband had also been born abroad; would my children be stateless within a “united” Europe? Are all three nationalities really equal at the end of the day or does one give you more rights than the other? Perhaps the answers lie in an independent Scotland. Forget about Germany, Spain, and Great Britain. Forget about Europe.  Vote Yes Scotland, and become Scottish instead!