About 75 people, including nongovernmental organization leaders and legislators, debated legislative amendments that would provide expedited citizenship to stateless children. The September 11 meeting in Tallinn was co-sponsored by the Forced Migration Projects, the Estonian Presidential Roundtable on National Minorities and the Open Estonia Foundation, which is part of the Soros foundations network. The Estonian parliament is scheduled to reconvene in late September to discuss the amendments, which in their present form would provide for expedited citizenship for children of non-citizens born in independent Estonia. Roughly 7,000 youths would become eligible for expedited citizenship under the amendments. Forced Migration Projects Director Arthur C. Helton, one of the meeting's speakers, urged Estonian legislators to take steps to grant children born in the republic with automatic citizenship.
Citizenship is perhaps the preeminent guarantor of human rights.
The amendments in principle were widely supported by meeting participants, although they voiced differences on details. Some, including Jiri Adams, a member of the parliament's Constitutional Committee, expressed reservations about the legislative changes. Eizenija Aldermane, Director of Latvia's Naturalization Board, also addressed the meeting, speaking on Latvia's proposed citizenship amendments, which will face a referendum on October 3.