Germany news. Lawsuits against Berlin over two year wait for German citizenship. More and more people seeking German citizenship might be resorting to lawsuits against the state of Berlin in order to speed up the process of acquiring German citizenship.
According toa report by Tagespiegel, people in Berlin are currenlt waiting as long as two yers in order to acquire citizenship while the pile of cases keep piling up.
There are an estimated 29,606 citizenship cases on file in the city, with 8,000 new procedures added since last October alone.
For fast and easy process, a growing number of people are resorting to legal action. 2022 saw 31 lawsuits against the state of Berlin for failure to act, a significant increase on previous years (there was only one such case over the two previous years).
Why people are suing Berlin for German citizenship: Is this possible?
Lawsuits against the state for not taking action are possible when applications are not promptly processes – it appears as if Berlin is struggling to make the demand.
Currently 22 of 94 positions are vacant in the naturalisation authority and the city was only able to grant 8,875 claims in 2022. Early next year, Berlin will open a new central office to handle the claims – once this opens, the city has set itself the target of granting 20,000 people German citizenship each year.
Source: Exberliner, Tagespiegel,Â