European Union citizenship
[3] EU citizens have the right to vote and run as a candidate in certain (often local) elections in the member state where they live that is not their state of origin, while also voting for EU elections and participating in a European Citizens' Initiative (ECI).
Citizenship of the EU confers the right to consular protection by embassies of other EU member states when an individual's country of citizenship is not represented by an embassy or consulate in the foreign country in which they require protection or other types of assistance.
[10] The modern EU citizenship status partially relies on the millennia of European history and Europe's common cultural heritage.
[13] In line with the model of social citizenship proposed by Thomas Humphrey Marshall, the "European Personal Status" or "Proto-European citizenship"[17] was built by recognizing the social rights connected to freedom of movement[21] and freedom of establishment in the first years of the EEC, when workers' rights in the host state were progressively extended to their family members even beyond the status of "worker",[23][24][25][26][27] so as to promote the full social integration of the workers and their families in the host member state.
[38] Before the institution of the European citizenship the ECJ interpreted the status of "worker" it beyond its purely literal meaning, progressively extending it to subjects such as non-economically active family members, students, tourists.
[39] This led the Court to hold that a mere recipient of services has free movement rights under the Treaty,[40] so that almost every national of an EU country moving to another member state as a recipient of services, whether economically active or not, but provided they do not constitute an unreasonable burden for the host state, shall non be granted equality of treatment[41] had a right to non-discrimination on the ground of nationality even prior to the Maastricht Treaty.
Due to the history of the EU and its mentioned development, the progress of including and excluding is inevitably full of tensions.
Many dynamics in citizenship grounded in the tension between the formal law part and the non-/beyond-law surrounding; such as the enlargement of freedom and rights to every kind of explicitly or implicitly economically active persons.
Economically inactive EU citizens who want to stay longer than three months in another Member State have to fulfill the condition of having health insurance and "sufficient resources" in order not to become an "unreasonable burden" for the social assistance system of the host Member State, which otherwise can legitimately expel them.
Article 21 (1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union[52] states that Every citizen of the Union shall have the right to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States, subject to the limitations and conditions laid down in this Treaty and by the measures adopted to give it effect.
The European Court of Justice has remarked that, EU Citizenship is destined to be the fundamental status of nationals of the Member States[55]The ECJ has held that this Article confers a directly effective right upon citizens to reside in another Member State.
[58] Member States can distinguish between nationals and Union citizens but only if the provisions satisfy the test of proportionality.
The ECJ's case law on citizenship has been criticised for subjecting an increasing number of national rules to the proportionality assessment.
[59] Also, the right to free movement is not fully available to certain groups of Union citizens because of the various hurdles they face in real life.
[61] The scale of those issues gives grounds that only a limited form of EU citizenship is available to transgender people.
However, it is broadly limited to those roles that exercise a significant degree of public authority, such as judges, police, the military, diplomats, senior civil servants or politicians.
EU member states are permitted to keep restrictions on citizens of the newly acceded countries for a maximum of seven years after accession.
"[67] As a result, there is a great variety in rules and practices with regard to the acquisition and loss of citizenship in EU member states.
[75] People born in Austria: Austrian nationality is acquired by descent under one of the following conditions: People born in Belgium who: Belgian nationality is acquired by descent under one of the following conditions: Foreigners can obtain nationality by declaration at their municipality of residence if they have a permanent right to reside in Belgium and satisfy either of the following: Foreigners can also petition the federal government for naturalization by the Chamber of Representatives without a formal residence requirement if they demonstrate exceptional merits in art, science, culture, or sport.
Finnish nationality is acquired by descent from a Finnish mother, and from a Finnish father under one of the following conditions: At birth, People born in France who: French nationality is acquired by descent under one of the following conditions: People born in Germany, if at least one parent has resided in Germany for at least 5 years and holds a permanent residence permit Yes, effective 27 June 2024[88][89][93] People born in Greece who: Greek nationality is acquired by descent under one of the following conditions: People born in Hungary who: Hungarian nationality is acquired by descent under one of the following conditions: People born in Ireland: Irish nationality is acquired by descent under one of the following conditions: Naturalised Irish citizens cannot obtain any more citizenships than they currently have unless this new citizenship is obtained by marriage or civil partnership, as this will result in the cancellation of the naturalisation papers.
There are no restrictions on dual nationality for those who obtained Irish citizenship by any method that does not involve a naturalisation certificate (e.g citizens by birth or descent).
Slovenian nationality is acquired by descent under one of the following conditions: People born in Spain who: People born in Sweden who: Swedish nationality is acquired by descent under one of the following conditions: The general rule for losing EU citizenship is that European citizenship is lost if member state nationality is lost,[108] but the automatic loss of EU citizenship as a result of a member state withdrawing from the EU is the subject of debate.
[113] As a result of the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union, the opinion of both the European Union and the British government has been that British citizens would lose their EU citizenship and EU citizens would lose their automatic right to stay in the UK.
To account for the problems arising from this, a provisional agreement outlines the right of British citizens to remain in the EU (and vice versa) where they are resident in the Union on the day of the UK's withdrawal.
The only exception to this is Irish citizens, who are entitled to live and work in the United Kingdom under the Common Travel Area.
Perhaps the most convincing and authoritative source that is cited in the article is the acting President of the European Court of Justice, Koen Lenaerts who published an article where he explains how the Court analyses and decides cases dealing with citizenship of the European Union.
[121] A proposal made first by Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament's Brexit negotiator, to help cover the rights of British citizens post-Brexit would see British citizens able to opt-out of the loss of EU citizenship as a result of the general clauses of the withdrawal agreement.
[122][123] However, it was made clear by the British government that there would be no role for EU institutions concerning its citizens, effectively removing the proposal as a possibility.
The opt-outs are outlined in the Edinburgh Agreement and concern the EMU (as above), the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP), Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) and the citizenship of the European Union.
[126] If these individuals were to overcome the bureaucratic hurdles of certifying their citizenship, they would enjoy freedom of movement to live anywhere in the EU, under the 1992 European Court of Justice decision Micheletti v Cantabria.
