Question:
My family and I would very much
like to live in Spain. We are fluently
bilingual and my wife was a citizen
of Mexico (became a US citizen in
1995). My grandfather was born in
Austria. Is there any legal way
to able to live/work in Spain? Is
there a way to obtain legal papers
in a EU country that would allow
me access to Spain?
Answer:
If your grandfather was born in
Austria, you may have rights to
Austrian citizenship. Contact the
Austrian Embassy in the US: http://www.austria.org/
If you can obtain Austrian citizenship,
you will be able to apply for an
Austrian passport. Once you have
this passport, you, your wife, and
your children can settle in any
EU country, including Spain, without
having to apply for a work permit
or visa.
There are
some minor formalities to register
with the Spanish authorities but
as an EU citizen you have the right
to live there. Does Austria permit
someone in this sort of situation
to have dual (i.e., both Austrian
and some other) citizenship? It
would be a very good idea to check
the paperwork for claiming Austrian
citizenship carefully to make sure
that no renunciation of other citizenship(s)
is required. At one time, it was
my understanding (possibly outdated,
to be sure, or possibly even completely
mistaken) that an applicant for
obtaining Austrian citizenship via
natural- ization was required to
submit evidence that any prior citizenship(s)
had been revoked.
If this requirement
does in fact exist, I realize it
might or might not apply to a birth
claim to Austrian citizenship (as
opposed to a naturalization procedure),
but it would be wise to check and
make sure. Although current US State
Dept. policy on loss of US citi-
zenship generally turns a blind
eye if a "routine" foreign naturalization
oath includes a blanket renunciatory
clause, an explicit requirement
to renounce one's old citizenship
before "old country" officials (and
produce written proof that this
has been done) is quite a different
matter.
Similarly,
it would be wise to check the Austrian
passport application carefully to
see if the applicant is required
to affirm that he/she possesses
no other passport (either from Austria
or from any other country). Such
a require- ment, if it exists, is
likely to be a tipoff that dual
citizenship is not permitted (even
if you thought it was). You're quite
correct - a google search reveals
http://www.austria-ny.org/page7-3e.html
which states clearly that the only
circumstances where dual nationality
is allowed is when it's acquired
at birth (e.g. the child of an Austrian
national born on US soil would have
both citizenships - Austrian through
descent, and US through birth).
They do say that's it's possible
to apply for permission to keep
Austrian citizenship before naturalisation
in the US, although there's no detail
on how easy it is to get this permission.
Germany has a similar law.
