Ministry of Justice to Draft a Bill Extending Dual Citizenship Deadline One Year
May 13, 2020
Dear Members of the Luxembourg American Cultural Society,
Many of you have expressed concern about the approaching deadline for those applying for dual citizenship. We are writing with good news.
The Ministry of Justice is fully aware of the problem of travel restrictions for some applicants of the dual citizenship living abroad, and is currently preparing a draft bill to extend the current deadline for another year.
Of course this bill has to pass through the legislative process in Parliament, but the Ministry of Justice is confident that there will be broad support and that the adoption can take place in the near future.
The LACS will continue to assist people with the stage 2 preparation based on when you think you may travel. Our citizenship advocates will explain the process and can give you a list of tasks to complete once the world begins to move again. They will give you information based on potential travel dates (which can be adjusted).
We are not recommending that people work on the time-sensitive documents until after travel bans are lifted, but would like to prepare you to be as ready to react as possible. We are hoping to gather and provide stage 2 information as a part of the call so that we may avoid a back-log situation once free movement is possible.
For those who complete stage 2 in advance, the LACS will need about 3 weeks to prepare translations once your travel date is selected. We cannot speculate on the turnaround times for those who wait to do their stage 2 call until the travel ban is lifted.
Once travel has resumed, we will be honored to help you as you continue the process and we look to you to tell us when you are traveling. We expect to have answers as to certificate and background check parameters at that time.
You may look to the Ministry of Health to get a sense of Luxembourg’s response to COVID-19 by checking their website often: https://msan.gouvernement.lu/en.html
During times of stress, it is sometimes nice to talk to a person about your questions and concerns. Please call or email us if that helps. Unfortunately, we do not have a lot of answers right now, but we are always happy to talk to our members!
Just a few quick reminders:
• We cannot speculate on and end date for COVID-19 measures.
• We cannot speculate on revised travel dates
• We cannot speculate on Bierger Center procedures or certificate parameters and what may be updated after travel has resumed.
We wish you all the best and will be in touch with you as this news develops.
Take care.
Sincerely,
Sara Jacoby, Director of Operations, and Rosie Geib, Citizenship Advocate