Dual Nationality - an update Feb 2009
Since writing about Dual Nationality last September 2008, there has been considerable activity on the topic of dual nationality on the part of politicians, in the press and by Danes Worldwide and www.statsborger.dk
The latter is a pressure group campaigning so vociferously on this matter that it stirred up a storm of controversy all of its own by encouraging the mass emailing of members of the Folketing by its supporters as a method of getting its message across. Some members apparently took exception to this exercise of voters' democratic right to communicate with their representatives. They found it irksome to have to deal with so many emails and complained loudly to this effect in the press, provoking incredulity in many quarters. One outcome, of course, was to further publicise the dual nationality question and so stimulate an even wider debate.
On the parliamentary front there have been a number of significant developments since last Autumn. The first was a proposal to allow dual nationality, put forward in the folketing by the Radical Left party in November. This was followed in the same week by another proposal, this time put forward by the Liberal Alliance, to set up a Commission to examine the consequences of changing the law in this way. Just recently it has been announced that on the 19th February there is to be a debate in the Folketing on the Radical Left's proposal.
So, the pace is quickening but, whilst there appears from the media to be considerable support in favour of a change in the law, there is still a distinct sense that the political argument remains to be won just as the overall public may still also need to be convinced.
Annette de la Cour
