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?
Lv 6
? asked in Politics & GovernmentImmigration · 7 years ago

Eligibility for EU citizenship? (Long but has a summary)?

My brother has recently been thinking about working in the EU, and this would be a lot easier if he had EU citizenship. This also got me curious about my own possible eligibility, and, since I'm absolutely awful at finding stuff on the internet, I figured I might as well post a question about it.

Family History:

My mother's mother (still alive) was born in Gottschee, Yugoslavia (modern day Slovenia) in 1920 to an Austrian man and a Gottscheer (ethnic German living in Yugoslavia) woman. My grandmother was a Yugoslavian citizen. They left in 1927 to go to the USA, but my grandmother's Yugoslavian citizenship was never formally renounced. All Gottscheers were exiled in 1946.

My mother's father (deceased) in 1920 was born in the United States to a Polish family and was a dual citizen. They moved back to Poland immediately after he was born, and my grandfather was raised there. He and the family left in 1927, and returned to the US. (If you're wondering, my grandfather was basically an anchor baby.)

Language Requirements:

We both speak German proficiently, and I speak Gottscheerish passably. Neither of us can speak Slovene or Polish, but we have the means to learn the languages.

Summary:

My mother's parents were Yugoslavian (Slovenia), American and Polish citizens, and my great-grand father was an Austrian citizen. We are of Gottscheer, Austrian and Polish descent. My mother is NOT a dual-citizen. We are American citizens. We have documentation to verify all of this.

We're wondering if it's somehow possible to acquire citizenship of any of these countries (Slovenia, Austria, Poland) based on descent?

Thanks for reading.

Update:

@John: Grandparent is too far removed? I am a little bit surprised by that. I know that many countries in the EU have strict immigration laws, but I've heard of people gaining EU citizenship when their great-great grandparents had come over as immigrants. I understand that every country has different laws, but this seems to be a very big difference.

Could my mother become a citizen? If so, can my brother and I then become citizens?

3 Answers

Relevance
  • 7 years ago

    Every country in the EU maintains its own citizenship laws

    Only a handful of countries allow citizenship to descend twice from parent to child & from grandparent to grandchild - Ireland, Italy, Greece, possibly Portugal, there is one country at a stretch may allow a claim through great-grandparent (Italy)

    You would need to contact the individual countries Embassies to find out what the exact laws are but most of them only allow a claim through a parent born in the country

    edit: a citizen by descent has no right to pass down their citizenship even if your mother could claim citizenship of one of those countries it would be of no use to you - the claim to citizenship is usually through a citizen BORN in the country, not by descent

    you have heard yourself of people claiming citizenship through a great-grandparent - a person needs to establish a line of descent & provide the paperwork to prove it but the original claim is through the citizen born in the country not any of the descendants

  • HJW
    Lv 7
    7 years ago

    Not many countries in the EU consider grandparents as direct descent. Only a few. But in this case too far removed. There is a time limit to access citizenship by descent.

  • ?
    Lv 7
    7 years ago

    Too far removed.

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