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https://news.err.ee/1608873710/still-no-solutions-for-russia...
Russia won't let them renounce their citizenship overseas, and going to Russia to do it will get you drafted.
No. It's just the excuse that's trotted out.
If that excuse wasn't available, a difference excuse/fig-leaf would have been given or created.
Trying to get rid of all potential excuses is unlikely to work, they'll just get creative and manufacture something else instead.
Only to visit for up to 90 days, not to actually reside in either place. So it would be more like a stateless European getting an ESTA, which is hardly a replacement for actual citizenship in their home country.
> For its owners it's a decent value
An actual Estonian passport lets its owners work in the EU and gives them mobility across 181 countries; a Russian passport gives them access to 119. Estonian non-citizens can visit 46. Not that visa-free access to another country is the point of citizenship.
Visa free does not generally mean residence permit included. Still a pretty reasonable deal for someone who is not a citizen in Schengen.
> a Russian passport gives them access to 119
A Russian passport requires visa application to any of Schengen states. The queues for filing I believe are into months now.
> Not that visa-free access to another country is the point of citizenship.
Indeed, and people who can't be arsed to naturalize clearly don't see it either.
I do not think that this will really be a motivating factor. Schengen visa waiting times would be the least of a stateless person's concerns.
> Indeed, and people who can't be arsed to naturalize clearly don't see it either.
I am not sure if you are suggesting that non-citizens are refusing to naturalise because they would lose visa-free access to Russia and the Schengen area. Historically, the most commonly-cited barriers to Estonian naturalisation have been the difficulty of the citizenship test and of learning the language, according to the Estonian ministry of culture. The context of the thread was someone suggesting that naturalisation be made easier.
Citizenship by birth is, while not uncommon, far from the norm (especially in Europe).
X being any random number chosen by rolling a D20, apparently, with case specific modifiers depending on job, language, parents, marriage, etc.
I also happen to think it's counter-productive. Where can I read more about this?
…about 125,000 people (most but not all of whom were Russian speakers) who failed the tests or refused to take them have become stateless, or “non-citizens”, who hold a grey passport. Tens of thousands have opted for the red Russian passports proposed by Moscow.
Main requirement frequently mentioned preventing the citizenship is unwillingness to pass the language exam. Same or similar rules (understanding the language, accepting constitution, paying taxes, etc) apply in other countries, including Russia. One of the issues is that Estonia does not accept dual citizenship and Russian citizens are often not willing to give up their passport even when they have never lived there (this attitude has changed during the last year, however).
To make matters worse, some people (66k in JAN 2022) do not have citizenship, they however have a special status in Russia, making traveling there easier than with Estonian citizenship.