Slovak passport. (source: TASR)
The law has been in effect since July 17, 2010 and the largest group of people (408) who decided to acquire the citizenship of another country – thereby automatically losing their Slovak one in the process – acquired Czech citizenship, according to statistics published by the Slovak Interior Ministry on June 15.
They were followed by people who obtained the citizenship of Germany (330);
Austria (199); the United Kingdom (131); Hungary (71); the US (56); Norway (33); the Netherlands (30), Belgium (26); Ireland and Italy (20 each); Switzerland (17); Canada (14), Australia (11); France (six); Finland; (five), China, Sweden and Russia (three each); Iceland, Poland and Ukraine (two each); and Denmark, New Zealand, Israel and Serbia (one each).
The State Citizenship Act was adopted by the first government of Robert Fico (2006-2010) in response to Hungarian legislation that made it possible for ethnic Hungarians living outside Hungary to gain dual citizenship.
There have been several attempts to mitigate the law since its adoption but all have failed so far. As of February 2016, the Interior Ministry began returning Slovak citizenship to people who lost it after obtaining foreign citizenship based on having permanent residence in the country in question. Slovak citizenship is restored via individual exemptions, the TASR newswire wrote.
