A total of 2,348 people have lost their Slovak passports under the State Citizenship Act, reported TASR on Saturday. In the almost eight years since it took effect on July 17, 2010, Slovaks most often lost their Slovak citizenship by acquiring that of the Czech Republic (596 people). Next came people who obtained the citizenship of Germany (545), Austria (346), the United Kingdom (242), the USA (108) and Hungary (106). As of February 2015, the Interior Ministry began returning Slovak citizenship to people who lost it after accepting foreign citizenship based on having permanent residence in the country in question. Since then, a total of 586 people have applied for the restoration with 468 of the applicants already having their Slovak passports restored and the Interior Ministry dealing with the remaining applications at the moment, TASR learnt from the Interior Ministry on Saturday.
The State Citizenship Act was adopted by the first government of Robert Fico (2006-10) 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.
