The Estonian government approved amendments to the law on Citizenship. It still must be approved by the parliament. Become a citizen of Estonia may soon become easier. This will affect primarily children of non-citizens of the country. They will be offered citizenship automatically, and the parents will abandon it for their children during the year from the time of birth. Innovation will affect about 1,000 children in Estonia, ee24.com informs.
It is also planned that the elderly over 65 years old will be easier to become the Estonian citizen. For them written citizenship exam will be replaced by oral.
Now about 88,000 non-citizens in Estonia, mostly Russian-speaking, do not have any citizenship (6.5% of the population), they have the status of "persons with undetermined citizenship". About 94,000 people are still citizens of Russia (6.9% of the Estonian population). A significant number of non-citizens in Estonia occured after the collapse of the USSR. The policy of the Baltic country has been criticized the UN, OSCE, Russia and international human rights organizations.
Estonia intends to follow Latvia in attracting foreign money and in some ways is even ahead of neighbor. Now the country is developing new laws to attract foreign investors, in particular, a "virtual citizenship" and a residence permit for property investment (similar law successfully operates in Latvia since 2010). Read more.
Continuing the theme, 11.06.2014:
The Parliament of Estonia finally didn't approve the amendments proposed by opposition Centre Party. Only those people, whose parents or they personally lived in the country until 1940, became citizens after Estonia' independence in 1991. Others receive citizenship by naturalization through exams and so on.