Anuscheh Farahat and Kay Hailbronner Länder have required that reciprocity only be guaranteed if another EU Member State provides the right to naturalisation. Other Länder considered it sufficient if a German national was in fact naturalised without the requirement of giving up German nationality. The matter was finally settled by a decision of the Federal Administrative Court deciding in favour of a more liberal interpretation which states that reciprocity does not require a formal similarity in terms of granting an individual right to naturalisation if in fact German nationals will be naturalised without having to renounce their German nationality.18 In principle, the provisions on ius soli acquisition have remained largely unchanged. A request, by the opposition parties, to replace the provisions on ius soli acquisition by a more restrictive rule whereby only children whose parents were born in Germany should be entitled to ius soli acquisition of German nationality, did not receive a majority in the Bundestag.19 A declaration of loyalty had already been introduced by the reform of 1999. The new Section 37 requires that the naturalisation authorities have to submit the personal data of any applicants who have reached the age of sixteen to the secret services. Major points of controversy were again the question of acceptance of dual nationality, the legal status of German repatriates and the conditions for the admission of repatriates, particularly regarding the proof of knowledge of the German language and diverse procedures for consulting with the secret services in the naturalisation proceedings. The law reform of 1999/2000 was accompanied by a political decision to renounce the 1963 Convention on Dual Nationality, which provides only for a very restricted acceptance of dual nationality. By signing the European Convention on Nationality on February 2002, Germany subscribed to the basic principles of the European Convention on Nationality allowing states party in Article 14 to provide for dual nationality for children automatically acquiring the nationality of a host state at birth and for married partners possessing another nationality. In addition, Article 15 in other cases leaves it up to the contracting states to allow, under its internal laws, multiple nationality if its nationals acquire or posses the nationality of another state. With regard to the loss of nationality, the optional model, in the view of the German government, required a reservation to the European Convention on Nationality whereby Germany declared that loss of German nationality ex lege may, on the basis of the option provision in Section 29 of the Nationality Law (opting for either German or a foreign nationality upon coming of age), be effected in the case of persons who, in addition to a foreign nationality, acquired German nationality by virtue of having been born in Germany. With regard to Article 7 para. 1 (f) and (g), Germany has also declared that loss of nationality may occur if, upon a person coming of age, or in the case of an adult being adopted, it be established that the requirements governing the acquisition of German nationality were not met. 2.4 The 2007 reform of nationality law The 2007 Act on implementing EU directives in the area of immigration and asylum law20 included a legislative reform of nationality law by a number of substantial changes although not all these changes were related to the implementation of EU legislation. Despite some 18 Judgement of 20 April 2004, Deutsche Verwaltungsblätter 2004, vol. 22, p. 1430. Bundestagsdrucksache (Official Records of the Bundestag), No. 15/955, p. 38 ff. 20 EU-Richtlinienumsetzungsgesetz of 28 August 2007, BGBl. I, p. 1970. 19 RSCAS/GLOBALCIT-CR 2020/5 - © 2020 Author(s) 9