Estonia, Law and Regulations, Legislation

Currently the Estonian citizenship law doesn’t allow double citizenship but the Constitution doesn't allow withdrawing Estonian citizenship acquired by birth from anyone. This means that Estonian citizens by birth have to give up one of their citizenships by choice when they become adults.

"Today and for the past 20 years the real situation is that the majority of Estonian citizens who live somewhere else have double citizenship," said Paet. "On the one hand there is a legislative conflict and on the other hand, I see no real reason why Estonia should keep its co-citizens, who permanently live elsewhere in the world, in a state of stress and say that maybe they should start giving up one citizenship," said Paet.

Paet said that the discussion in this issue was started to keep the legislation in line with real life. He said that the problem keeps increasing since Estonian citizens marry citizens of other states whose children also have to make a choice between citizenship of their mother and father which he doesn’t think is justified.