How is the rule about 'three months of unemployment benefits within two years' calculated?
Is the citizenship application I submitted earlier this year subject to the old laws or the new laws?
It seems to me that the changes to the citizenship laws are devised to persecute foreigners for no reason.
The above are just some of the hundreds of replies we received when issuing a callout for questions and comments about the government's latest tightening of the rules around obtaining Finnish citizenship.
The amendments, voted into law by parliament last month, relate to an applicant's financial self-sufficiency as well as their "integrity" — meaning the committing of offences or crimes.
This marks the second phase of the government's three-step strategy aimed at making it more difficult for foreigners to obtain a Finnish passport, following last year's extension of the residency requirement and the plans to introduce a citizenship test. They also come in the wake of similar changes to the rules around applying for a residence permit.
"I feel that every new law and rule that they've made recently surrounding integration of foreigners and citizenship have been made to make it harder for us, more difficult, and it's already difficult, and I feel that we're just not wanted," Bronwyn Vainionpää, who moved to Finland in 2023 to be with her Finnish husband, tells APN.
Vainionpää's view reflects the feelings of many other listeners who contacted us about this issue.
Answering your questions
The sweeping changes to the law regarding financial self-sufficiency have been greeted with confusion and concern among people hoping to apply for Finnish citizenship, so this week APN set out to find answers to these essential questions.
One of the most controversial provisions of the new law states that relying on social benefits for more than three months over the last two years will lead to an application for citizenship being denied.
We received many questions about this issue: When does this two-year period start and end? Which benefits will affect a citizenship application, and which are exempt?
"The two years is counted from the date the decision is made, that is the two years prior to the granting of citizenship," Hanna Pihkanen of the interior ministry explains, adding that the amendment only relates to two kinds of benefits: unemployment benefits and social assistance.
We address a host of other questions and concerns — including when the law comes into effect, if already-submitted applications are subject to the old or the new laws, and how the amendments will impact spouses and children.
Pia Lindfors of the Finnish Refugee Advice Centre — which provides legal aid and advice to foreigners as well as refugees — also joins the discussion, telling us that there were "absolutely no grounds for these changes".
"They are purely ideological, I would say. Instead, there should be a clear and predictable future path for migrants to actually stay in Finland, if they want to," Lindfors says.
Listen to the episode via this embedded player, on Yle Areena, via Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Ronan Browne produced and presented this episode of All Points North. The sound engineer was Katja Kostiainen.
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