By Siranush Adamyan
Armenia’s government plans to tighten its citizenship rules by requiring applicants, including ethnic Armenians, to have actually lived in the country before becoming eligible for citizenship, Interior Minister Arpine Sargsyan told CivilNet in an interview on September 7.
Sargsyan said the government was seeking a broader change in its approach to citizenship, arguing that Armenia had for years treated citizenship too much like an ordinary public service rather than as a relationship based on a meaningful connection between the individual and the state.
“If you want to become a citizen of the Republic of Armenia, you have to live in the Republic of Armenia,” Sargsyan said. “There is simply no other way for this entire process.”
She said the planned amendments to the citizenship law would introduce a residency requirement intended to demonstrate that an applicant has established Armenia as the center of their life and intends to maintain a long-term connection with the country.
“If a person is not in the Republic of Armenia, does not consider the Republic of Armenia the center of their vital interests and is not a resident of the Republic of Armenia, it is difficult to imagine that this person connects their future with the Republic of Armenia,” Sargsyan said.
Under Armenia’s current citizenship law, most adult foreign nationals applying through the standard procedure must have lived permanently in Armenia for the preceding three years, be able to communicate in Armenian, and be familiar with the Constitution. Several categories are exempt from some of these requirements. In particular, people of Armenian origin can currently obtain citizenship without satisfying the three-year residence and Armenian-language requirements.
That facilitated route for ethnic Armenians is among the provisions the government intends to revise.
Sargsyan noted that Armenia’s Constitution provides for a simplified citizenship procedure for ethnic Armenians, but said the authorities had effectively failed to give sufficient weight to the constitutional reference to establishing residence in Armenia.
“We have somehow failed, as a state, to treat the establishment of residence as a requirement,” she said, adding that under the existing practice a person can travel to an Armenian embassy abroad, submit a citizenship application and go through the process without first settling in Armenia.
The proposed system would introduce a defined residency threshold before an ethnic Armenian becomes eligible to apply.
“We need to have a certain residency requirement so that we clearly understand that the person has come to the Republic of Armenia not simply for travel, but is linking their future life with the Republic of Armenia,” Sargsyan said.
Asked whether the rules for ethnic Armenians and other foreigners would effectively be brought closer together, Sargsyan said they would be aligned “in terms of the underlying concept,” while some simplified procedures and differences in the required periods would remain for ethnic Armenians.
“You have to live in Armenia, you have to connect your life with Armenia, so that the Republic of Armenia can be confident that, as a citizen, it can establish and maintain a long-term relationship with you,” she said.
Sargsyan stressed that the proposed residency requirement would apply to the initial acquisition of citizenship, not restrict Armenians from later moving abroad after becoming citizens.
She said residency could also determine the scope of certain state benefits and obligations, citing Armenia’s health insurance system as an example of services tied to whether a citizen actually resides in the country.
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