Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Dmytro Kuleba believes that granting Ukrainians the right to dual citizenship will allow Ukraine to more effectively use the potential of compatriots from the diaspora who seek to help their homeland.
The told the ZN.UA (Dzerkalo Tyzhnia.Ukraine) there are several reasons for granting Ukrainians the right to dual citizenship (he emphasized that he expressed his personal opinion, not the one of the entire government).
“If new representatives of the diaspora with Canadian or U.S. citizenship but ready to work for our country appear in the Ukrainian government in the future, the Ukrainian state should have a ready-made model of cooperation with them but not invent all kinds of schemes,” the deputy prime minister said.
He believes that liberalization of citizenship policy will make it possible to keep in the Ukrainian space millions of Ukrainians who left Ukraine and obtained the citizenship of another country, but who want to keep in touch with their homeland.
“We should not tear these people away. We have already lost so many,” the official added.
In addition, according to Kuleba, the state’s tolerant attitude towards second citizenship will solve the issue of tens of thousands of Ukrainians having Hungarian and Romanian passports, which many received only for the sake of a quiet movement in the European Union. By and large, according to the deputy premier, this should remove one of the acute problems in relations between Ukraine and neighboring countries.
At the same time, Kuleba categorically rejects the possibility of Ukraine’s recognizing Russian citizenship as the second one.
“The right of dual citizenship should not under any circumstances apply to the aggressor country,” he said.
