Merve Erdilmen and Iseult Honohan (iii) Citizenship for foundlings All EU Member States except Cyprus have ius soli regulations for foundlings: children found in the state whose parents are unknown. While most apply this unconditionally, maximum age restrictions apply in Ireland, Malta and Portugal (only newborn infants), Austria (only under 6 months), Czech Republic (up to 3 years), Finland (up to 5 years). (iv) Citizenship for children who would otherwise be stateless All EU Member States except Cyprus and Romania provide citizenship for children born in the state who would otherwise be stateless. It is awarded unconditionally and automatically in Belgium, Bulgaria, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, and Spain. In other states considerable restrictions and conditions are applied. An additional requirement: that no other citizenship is available (as distinct from actually acquired), or that parents themselves are stateless is applied in Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Italy, Latvia,8 Lithuania, Slovakia and Slovenia (sometimes with residence conditions for the parents and/or for the children). Where citizenship is not awarded at birth or automatically to children born in the country who would otherwise be stateless, in several states citizenship can be obtained only through facilitated naturalisation9 of various kinds after a number of years: Netherlands (3 years), Germany, Malta and the United Kingdom (5 years), Austria (10 years), or on the basis of continuing residence in Denmark. In Sweden citizenship can be acquired by declaration by a person up to a maximum age of 18, on condition of holding a permanent residence permit. (v) Citizenship acquired after birth on the basis of birth in the country A more general provision for ius soli citizenship awarded at some point after birth may be seen as weaker than, but supplementary to, the award of citizenship at birth. Citizenship may be acquired automatically when a person reaches a certain age, or through a naturalisation process that dispenses with some of the conditions for ordinary naturalisation that apply to immigrants. This facilitated naturalisation is still, however, normally discretionary. Ius soli after birth provisions exist in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and the United Kingdom. The most common condition is a number of years of residence after birth. While Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Luxembourg, Portugal, Slovakia, and Spain require residence of between 5 and 10 years, 10 years or more are required in Belgium, Italy, Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. In Bulgaria, Finland, and the Netherlands the minimum age of eligibility is eighteen. Where the process is one of discretionary naturalisation, in some countries this means considerable reductions in requirements relative to the ordinary naturalisation procedure (Ireland, Portugal Spain, United Kingdom). In others the conditions are almost equivalent to those of ordinary naturalisation (Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic, 8 From 2020 Latvia additionally has specific provisions for automatic citizenship for those born to parents with ‘non-citizen’ status, that is, those of formerly Russian citizenship, who did not gain any citizenship at independence in 1991(see further in Section 5). 9 Facilitated naturalisation is a procedure that grants citizenship with reduced conditions compared with ordinary, residence- based naturalisation. RSCAS/GLOBALCIT-Comp. 2020/2 - © 2020 Authors 7