As of February, the Interior Ministry will begin returning Slovak citizenship to people who lost it after accepting foreign citizenship based on permanent residence in a different country. Citizenship will be restored by virtue of exemptions. More than 900 people have been stripped of Slovak citizenship to date due to the current State Citizenship Act, which automatically takes away Slovak citizenship from those who gain the citizenship of a foreign country. This act was introduced by the first cabinet of Robert Fico in 2010 as a counter-measure to a Hungarian citizenship law that made it significantly easier for ethnic Hungarians living in neighbouring countries to acquire Hungarian citizenship. Now the Interior Ministry will be returning Slovak citizenship, however, the Ministry is unable to estimate the number of those eligible to have it restored.

Katarína Richterová, Photo: SITA