Supplementary Reply to Recommendation 1081 (1988) on the problems of nationally in mixed marriages

27 October 1993

Doc. 6966

COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMITTEE OF MINISTERS

Supplementary Reply to Recommendation 1081 (1988)

on the problems of nationality in mixed marriages

(adopted by the Committee of Ministers on 18 October 1993

at the 500th meeting of the Ministers' Deputies)

1. Supplementing the reply adopted in October 1988 on Parliamentary Assembly Recommendation 1081 (1988) on problems of nationality in mixed marriages, the Committee of Ministers wishes to inform the Assembly of the following action taken pursuant to the recommendation.

2. On 2 February 1993, the Committee of Ministers opened for signature the Second Protocol amending the Convention on the Reduction of Cases of Multiple Nationality and Military Obligations in Cases of Multiple Nationality (ETS No. 149). The Protocol notably deals with the concerns put forward in paragraphs 5 and 6 of the Assembly recommendation in that it provides for the following three additional cases of multiple nationality:

i. where a national of a Contracting Party acquires the nationality of another Contracting Party on whose territory either he was born and is resident, or has been ordinarily resident for a period of time beginning before the age of 18, each of these Parties may provide that he retains the nationality of origin;

ii. in cases of marriage between nationals of different Contracting Parties, each of these Parties may provide that the spouse, who acquires of his or her own free will the nationality of the other spouse, retains the nationality of origin;

iii. when a national of a Contracting Party who is a minor and whose parents are nationals of different Contracting Parties acquires the nationality of one of his parents, each of these Parties may provide that he retains the nationality of origin.

3. As regards paragraph 11 of the recommendation, the Committee of Ministers further wishes to inform the Assembly that the European Committee on Legal Co-operation (CDCJ), at its last meeting in June 1993, agreed that numerous problems concerning nationality, in particular multiple nationality, had not been solved by the 1963 Convention (ETS No. 43) or by its three Protocols (ETS Nos. 95, 96 and 149). The CDCJ therefore instructed its Committee of Experts on Multiple Nationality (CJ-PL) to draft a convention which would contain certain general principles relating to nationality and deal with means to regulate consequences of multiple nationality. The new convention would not require states to accept multiple nationality as a general principle. The Parliamentary Assembly will be consulted in due time on this draft.

In view of the high priority which the CDCJ continues to attach to this activity, the Secretary General has included this important activity in the draft intergovernmental programme of activities for 1994, which is to be examined by the Committee of Ministers towards the end of 1993.