Homeland citizenship policies and the status of third country nationals in the European Union

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Discussion of the status of third country nationals in the European Union tends to focus on member state and/or European Community law and policy. These debates need to take into account the policies and interests of the sending states as well. They are central to the decisions of third country nationals to naturalise and integrate into host countries. We examine the citizenship and naturalisation policies of the three most important EU receiving states: Germany, the UK, and France. We explore the policies of their leading source countries regarding dual nationality, naturalisation abroad, renunciation of home country citizenship, mandatory military service, postal ballots and other policies plausibly linked to migrant naturalisation decisions. We find that the naturalisation policies of the host countries are converging, though not in an obviously liberal or restrictive direction. On the other hand, there is a strong pattern among the sending states. They have eliminated most of the disincentives for their nationals acquiring host country citizenship. At the same time they permit expatriates to retain their homeland nationality and most other rights of citizenship. We argue that these are strategic moves on the part of sending governments to first, ease the plight of nationals living permanently abroad, second, maintain ties with those who would expatriate in any case, and third, facilitate the use of the expatriate community as a means of political leverage against host governments.