AfD motion to reverse German citizenship reform fails in Bundestag

An AfD motion to reverse Germany’s 2024 citizenship reform has failed in parliament after it was unable to gather support from other parties, namely the CDU/CSU.

AfD tables motion to reverse citizenship reform

A recent AfD motion to reverse Germany’s 2024 citizenship reform has failed in the Bundestag. 439 Bundestag members voted against the motion and 135 voted in favour.

The motion suggested that the minimum residence period before international residents become eligible for German citizenship "be restored to eight years, the language test raised to B2 level, and the ability to support oneself strictly assessed".

The party said that any time residents spend seeking asylum in Germany should not count towards the eight-year residence period, and that residents who have entered Germany illegally should be excluded from naturalising altogether.

The motion also proposed that citizenship applicants take a “loyalty test” to “ensure that only those individuals who align with the principles of the constitution are naturalised”. 

Some version of some of these proposals is already in place in Germany. International residents must have lived in Germany for at least five years before they become eligible for citizenship. 

Applicants must also prove they have German language skills at B1 level, prove that they have a stable income and are unlikely to depend on state benefits in the near future, and must officially declare their commitment to the free and democratic basic order of the state in writing.

The populist party, which generally takes a hard-line anti-immigration stance, claimed that reversing the 2024 reform would “achieve political integration and establish clear rules that respect the limits of public infrastructure".

AfD motion shows CDU stance is unclear

In a speech ahead of the vote, AfD representative Gottfried Curio claimed his party was essentially putting forward a motion initially proposed by the CDU.

The 2024 citizenship reform was introduced by the SPD-Greens-FDP government, and promises to reverse it were central to the CDU/CSU’s campaign ahead of the 2025 election.

After winning the election, the centre-right party entered a coalition with the SPD and reached a compromise that only the “fast-track naturalisation” part of the 2024 reform would be scrapped. The “fast-track naturalisation” policy was then scrapped in October 2025.

Speaking on the Bundestag floor ahead of the vote on the AfD’s motion, Siegfried Walch (CDU) said the CDU/CSU-SPD’s compromise to scrap fast-track citizenship had sufficed and was “exactly in line with [the CDU/CSU’s] conservative core values".

Germany’s political firewall (Brandmauer), a long-standing agreement among parties across the centre-right, centre-left and far-left spectrum that they will not cooperate with extremist parties, namely the AfD, also meant the CDU was unlikely to support the AfD’s motion. However, previous moves by the CDU have brought the party's commitment to the Brandmauer into question.

For now, according to Hakan Demir (SPD), who also spoke on the Bundestag floor ahead of the debate, the five-year residence requirement for citizenship is considered a "good and widely supported compromise".