Anuscheh Farahat and Kay Hailbronner fulfilling the aforementioned requirements to demand naturalisation (Hailbronner 1999b: 1).8 Although these provisions of the Aliens Act granting an entitlement to German citizenship required renunciation of previous nationality, a number of exceptions were made which led in fact to a steadily increasing number of naturalisations with dual nationality. Exceptions were granted, for instance, if a foreigner could not renounce his or her previous nationality or only under particularly difficult conditions, e.g., if the original home country required military service before giving up nationality. The general number of naturalisations in 1995 increased to 313,606 compared to 34,913 in 1985 (in 1997, however, the number decreased to 278,662). However, it must be taken into account that this figure includes a substantial number—up to three-quarters—of naturalisations of German repatriates (Aussiedler), who acquire German citizenship very easily on the basis of Article 116 of the Basic Law in connection with the Expellees Act, giving them a constitutional right to obtain German citizenship as a refugee or expellee of German ethnic origin or as their spouse or descendant, provided that they had been admitted to the territory of the ‘German Reich’ within the frontiers of 31 December 1937. Nevertheless, in 1990, naturalisations based upon the provisions of the Aliens Act for the immigrant population increased at a rate of about 35 per cent, in 1994 at a rate of 54 per cent and in 1996 by 20 per cent compared to the preceding year (Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Ausländerfragen 1999: 11); in 1997, however, the number of naturalisations decreased by about 4 per cent. With Germany having 1.18 per cent of the total foreign population of Europe, the rate of naturalisations in 1996 was still relatively small compared to other western European states, although it had quadrupled since 1986.9 The share of women was substantially higher, with 1.37 per cent, compared to that of men, with 1.03 per cent. According to an agreement between the Christian Democratic Party and the Liberal Party of 1994, the introduction of a special nationality for children (Kinderstaatszugehörigkeit) of the third generation who were born in Germany was envisaged.10 In order to be eligible for this special nationality, which was intended to ensure equal treatment between German nationals in the issuing of German identity cards, at least one of the child’s parents would have to be born in Germany and both would have to reside lawfully in Germany during the ten years preceding the child’s birth. Additionally, both parents would have to be entitled to an unlimited residence permit. The ‘quasi-nationality’ for children would require an application by parents before the child’s twelfth birthday. With the child’s eighteenth birthday, the young adult would acquire full German nationality upon renouncing his or her prior nationality. It is very doubtful whether the proposal was practicable and whether a ‘quasi-nationality’ would have been acceptable in international relations and what effect such a special nationality might have had, for instance, with regard to the application of international treaties relating to visa and travel documents (Europäisches Forum für Migrationsstudien 1995: 11, 19; Lübbe-Wolff 1996: 57; Ziemske 1995: 380, 381). The proposal was never put into practice, nor indeed were any of the other proposals, due to political developments in the Bundestag and Bundesrat. Following a shift of power in the Länder in 1999, the Bundesrat, the upper house of Parliament, representing the German Länder, which were then dominated by the Christian Democratic Party, suggested that German nationality would be acquired automatically by a child whose foreign parents were born in Germany and who, at the time of the child’s birth, 8 This was part of the so-called Asylkompromiss, Bundesgesetzblatt (Federal Law Gazette), vol. I, p. 1062. Ethnic Germans are not included in this rate of naturalisation. 10 As to the coalition agreement see Eylmann (1995: 161, 163); Leutheuser-Schnarrenberger (1995: 81, 85); Ziemske (1995: 80) and the Plenarprotokoll des Deutschen Bundestages (Parliament’s Plenary Protocol), No. 13/18, p. 1217. 9 RSCAS/GLOBALCIT-CR 2020/5 - © 2020 Author(s) 5