Ain't you quite Finnish yet?

[marko_the_rat]

I got a package in the mail today from the Finnish Immigration Service. After waiting the better part of a year, they've approved my application for Finnish citizenship! (This doesn't affect my Australian citizenship of course; I wouldn't do it if it did.)

Ohessa Maahanmuuttoviraston päätös Suomen kansalaisuudestanne.

I'm embarrassed to admit that my Finnish is pretty rusty, but I think that says something along the lines of "Has achieved emigrant (or outside of Finland) Finnish citizenship."

So why did I do it? Just to keep my options open, in case I ever want to visit or move to Europe. (Finland is part of the European Union.) It's quite ironic; ristin has American citizenship which I would really value and I have European citizenship which Ristin would really value. How can we swap? :)

Comments

[captpackrat.livejournal.com]

How do you go about doing that? My SO was interested in dual-citizenship. Are the requirements all that hard?

[marko-the-rat.livejournal.com]

I was born there as were my parents who are both still Finnish citizens. I only lost my Finnish citizenship when I became an Australian citizen, which is why I had to apply to get it back again. If your SO meets these criteria, then they still won't be able to apply for Finnish citizenship because I applied just before the deadline for ex-nationals expired (May last year). I don't think there's any country in the world that you can apply for citizenship of without evincing a strong connection to that country.

It's my understanding that in America if you apply for and gain citizenship of another country, you automatically lose your US citizenship. (This is effectively what happened to me when I became an Australian citizen. Finland had only later lifted the ban on dual citizenship with selected countries, of which Australia was one.) It could be my knowledge of US citizenship law is out of date. Ristin only gets away with it because he didn't apply for Australian citizenship; he got it by virtue of his parents being Australian citizens who still lived in Australia.