As Prime Minister Petteri Orpo’s Perussuomalaiset (PS)* Interior Minister Mari Rantanen aims to tighten naturalization laws, the impact of such changes will knock Finland negatively.
Rantanen said last year that not only will residence time rise from 5 to 8 years, but also a citizenship test will be given and a tougher language test.
Europe is lost. It believes that short-term solutions like fences will save it from itself.
While the government, especially the PS and the National Coalition Party (NCP) see migrants as a threat, the question we should ask is why stricter naturalization laws are needed and, importantly, what kind of a slippery slope is it.
While the government complains that not enough is being done to encourage integration, tighter naturalization laws will do just that, making pathways to integration more difficult by marginalizing migrants and exposing the hostile environment.
If you don’t have Finnish citizenship you cannot vote, especially against those who are excluding you from being an equal part of society.
Stricter naturalization laws bring memories of when women did not have the right to give their children citizenship since only Finnish males had such a right. Finnish women obtained such. right in 1984, or 66 years after independence, or 77 years after they got the right to vote in 1906.
While President Alexander Stubb and other politicians, like former President Sauli Niinistö, have expressed their willingness to take away citizenship rights from dual Finnish-Russian citizens, such a move would be synonymous with a modern version of the Nazi Nuremberg Laws, which denied Jews citizenship.
In my opinion, taking away and denying citizenship to over 40,000 Russian dual citizens would be a dark and shameful spot in our history.
If the government decides to make dual citizenship difficult for the Russians, what will be its next step: scrap dual citizenship for all nationalities?
While the war in Ukraine is a cause for rising xenophobia and ultra-nationalism, the chest-beating by politicians like Defense Minister Antt Häkkänen only makes matters worse.
Finland is becoming an ever-hostile nation against migrants and their cultural backgrounds.
There are still many good Finns who believe in human rights and have no qualms about cultural diversity.
