Eight percent of German population alien 07/03/2007 00:00

Wiesbaden, Germany (dpa) - In Germany, about 8 per cent of the population are aliens, with Turkish, Italian and Polish nationals making up the biggest groups, according to Federal Statistics Office data Wednesday.

The statisticians estimated 6.75 million non-Germans were staying in Germany. The figure does not include tourists and other visitors, and is recalculated every year to account for new arrivals, departures, deaths and people being naturalized as Germans.

One-fifth of the foreign nationals were born in Germany, which does not confer nationality by birth. Automatic nationality only comes by descent from a German.

The overall aliens number has fallen by 0.1 per cent from one year previously, the statisticians in Wiesbaden said.

Some 26 per cent of the foreigners have Turkish passports, followed by Italians (8 per cent) and Poles (5 per cent). They were among the 77 per cent hailing from Europe, while another 12 per cent came from Asia.

The figures show about 70 per cent of the foreigners had been living in Germany for eight years or more, the basic requirement to obtain German citizenship.

Many aliens refuse to take German nationality because German law requires new citizens to renounce their old nationality.

Germany's official overall population as of the end of 2005 was 82.44 million.

DPA

Subject: German news