Now you can be a Dane - and something else

On a vote just a few days before the Christmas holiday break 2014-2015, the Danish parliament voted in favor of dual citizenship, with a final vote of 89 for and 19 against, reports The Local.

The Danish People’s Party and Conservatives were the only parties that voted against the law, claiming that citizenship symbolically represents loyalty, and one person cannot have multiple loyalties.

Denmark is one of the last countries in the EU to approve dual citizenship. The new law will go into effect on September 1, 2015. Access rules to Danish citizenship will not be changed. International applicants will have to live up to exactly the same criteria as before.

Opportunities for Danes and non-Danish ‘Danes’

Not only does this provide opportunities for foreigners living in Denmark, but it also would allow Danes abroad to gain further rights.

For example, this would mean that Danes who have been living abroad too long to vote in Danish elections would be able to participate in elections abroad and the group of non-ethnic Danish voters in Denmark may begin to swell.

This could, some speculate, lead to an increase in students with the opportunity to study in Denmark with the benefits of SU (the generous Danish public grant for students).

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