Government eases rules for citizenship

The government and Red/Green Alliance have reached agreement on new legislation that will make it easier for immigrants to acquire Danish citizenship, according to seven59.dk and politiken.dk.

Language requirements will be lowered and the controversial citizenship exam will be easier to pass in the future, while the processing period for applications has been given a strict, seven-month time limit.

More integration of foreigners

Red/Green spokesperson Johanne Schmidt-Nielsen said it’s high time that the tough language stipulations were eased so large groups of refugees and immigrants aren’t continually denied the possibility of a Danish passport.

“It’s also great to see millions of kroner being spent on shortening the excessive processing time for citizenship applications,” she said. “The Red/Greens have backed this agreement because we’re tired of the previous government’s inhumane rules, but we would have preferred to have gone even further.”

Justice Minister Morten Bødskov welcomed the changes aimed at ‘encouraging the integration of foreigners into society’ and especially welcomed the shortening of the processing period to seven months by the end of 2014

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