Central and Eastern European Migration Review

The prevalent conceptual approach used to assess multiple citizenship legislation is based on analysing a set of selected elements of the relevant legal framework. This paper argues that the evolution of legal rules on dual citizenship cannot be comprehensively analysed using methods created for comparative analyses and based on a narrow selection of legal rules that reflect either a restrictive or an open ap-proach to dual citizenship. The simplified approach that focuses on the analysis of selected fragments of explicit legislation generates results that may be misleading. Therefore, the terms of reference for comparative study of multiple citizenship should be elaborated and extended. A comprehensive compar-ative method also has to take into account the migration context as well as relevant aspects of the legal and political context. This article explores these issues through an analysis of Polish legal rules in the field of dual citizenship.

The break-up of the former Yugoslavia resulted in the establishment of seven states with manifestly different citizenship regimes. Relating the politics of citizenship to the dominant nation-building pro-jects, this paper argues that in the post-Yugoslav countries in which nation-building projects are con-solidated (Croatia, Slovenia and Serbia) citizenship regimes converge around ethnic inclusiveness, while in those where nation building is contested (Macedonia and Montenegro) territorial rather than ethnic attachments are articulated in citizenship policies. In the case of Kosovo, and to a certain degree Bosnia and Herzegovina, policies emphasise territory due to international involvement in the shaping of their citizenship regimes. Even though all of these states have adopted ius sanguinis as the main mechanism of citizenship attribution at birth, the different approaches to naturalisation and dual citi-zenship indicate that the politics of citizenship are inextricably linked to the questions of nation building and statehood. To explore these issues, the paper first outlines the main traits of citizenship policies in contested and consolidated states. It proceeds by looking at different naturalisation requirements in the two groups of states. It argues that extension to ethnic kin occurs only in countries in which statehood and nation building are consolidated, where it serves to project an image of national unity. In states that are challenged by several competing nation-building projects, citizenship attribution through ethnic kinship is impossible due to lack of internal unity. The paper also analyses approaches to dual citizen-ship, identifying patterns of openness and restrictiveness. By doing so, it links the politics of citizenship to the interaction of foreign policy mechanisms in post-Yugoslav countries and identifies the points where these regimes overlap or conflict with each other.

This paper examines the Albanian state–nation constellation in the Balkans in the light of the European Union (EU) integration process with a focus on citizenship configurations in Kosovo and Albania. It addresses an important puzzle: why legal norms of citizenship do not follow the emerging practice of stronger trans-border co-operation in the Albanian ethnic and cultural space. The study shows that the process of EU integration is the key to understanding and explaining this puzzle, for it provides an opportunity for ‘constructive ambiguity’ around which both ethnic and statist brands of Albanian na-tionalism, as well as various elite fractions, can coalesce and coexist. In a wider context, Albanian citizenship configurations are shaped by the ever-evolving complex relationship between nation, state and Europe.

As the adoption of the Hungarian simplified naturalisation scheme raised much tension both in the neighbouring countries of Hungary and in the main host countries of EU citizens, this paper summarises the nature of such reactions and the most frequent fears that EU states expressed. The main aim of the study is to show what effects a country’s modification of its citizenship rules may have on the situations of other EU member-states and European Union citizens. The article also raises one practical aspect of the situation that evolved as a result of the answer by Slovakia to the Hungarian modifications – namely the ex lege withdrawal of Slovakian citizenship if a person acquires a new one from another country. It introduces in detail the free-movement aspects of ethnic Hungarians losing their Slovakian citizenship, while not leaving their homeland in Slovakia, arguing that people in such a situation may rightfully and immediately be eligible for permanent residence rights, which would provide them with a higher level of protection.

This paper unpacks the legitimacy gap existing between post-communist policies of citizenship restitu-tion, the experiences of these policies, and the media coverage of these policies. Considering citizenship restitution first as analogous to property restitution, theoretically citizenship restitution appears as com-pensatory, to right the wrongs of communist- and Soviet-era seizures and border changes, and appears to establish citizenship restitution as a right. Using UK media coverage of Romania’s policy of citizen-ship restitution vis-à-vis Moldova, the paper shows the extent to which this policy is framed as an ille-gitimate loophole propagated by a ‘Romanian Other’ which is ‘giving out’ EU passports, exploited by an impoverished and criminal ‘Moldovan Other’, and inflicted on a ‘UK Self’ that is powerless to stem the tide of migration and block routes to gaining access to the EU via such policies. However, the paper also contrasts, and challenges, this media framing by using interviews with those acquiring Romanian citizenship in Moldova to demonstrate the extent to which acquiring Romanian citizenship in Moldova is a costly and lengthy procedure. Overall, the paper shows the extent to which citizenship restitution is a contested procedure, constructed as a right by the state seeking to compensate former citizens, and as illegitimate by those who construct a logic resulting from feeling threatened by policies of citizenship restitution.

Acquiring citizenship in the country of resettlement is the ultimate step on the integration pathway of a resettled person. For people from countries of the former Soviet Union (fSU), we can see a great variety in patterns of citizenship acquisition and changes in migration policy governing the granting of citizenship. Russia is the main player in this field. As a descendant of the fSU, the country uses its right to determine whether or not to grant its citizenship to people in the new independent countries as a way of maintaining its influence on the post-Soviet and even the former Russian Empire regions. Russian citizenship was granted to m 8.6 million people between 1992 and 2016 (excluding the Crimean popu-lation), more than 92 per cent of whom were from the fSU. Russia employs a range of different policies, starting with its compatriot policy for individual resettlement; then comes its not formally declared pol-icy of issuing Russian passports for the population of non-recognised states (such as Transdnestria) and finally there is Russia’s policy of automatically granted citizenship for 2 million Crimean people. This paper explores the phenomenon of Russian citizenship policy and compares it with European or Eura-sian policy governing fSU countries. It also discusses the implementation of this policy at both regional and global levels.