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German parliament on Thursday passed a law that will allow children born to immigrants in Germany to hold dual citizenship.
Approved by the Bundestag, lower house of the German parliament, the new law will provide dual citizenship to those, who by the age of 21, have lived in Germany for at least eight years or have at least six years of schooling in the country.
Up until now, German-born children of immigrants have had to pick one nationality before the age of 23. German citizens are not permitted to hold two passports.
The approval of dual citizenship is a major victory for Germany's center-left Social Democrat Party (SPD), the junior coalition partner of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives.
Changing the country's citizenship laws was a key demand of the SPD during coalition talks following September 2013 elections.
The move to ease restrictions will mainly benefit the more-than-3 million people of Turkish origin living in Germany, a community that represents more than 4 percent of the total German population.
