20 January 2022
Curing the Symptoms but not the Disease
Traffic violations are not a proportionate justification to effectively deprive a person of her EU citizenship. This may sound obvious but in reality it was not, as the crucial Grand Chamber case of JY decided on January 18 demonstrates. This is a significant yet predictable addition to the edifice of EU citizenship post-Rottmann. Regrettably, the forward-looking judgment is myopic up to the point of an error of judgement as to the fundamental challenges at play in the factual constellation at hand. Continue reading >>
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13 July 2018
Wozu muss der Verlust der Unionsbürgerschaft verhältnismäßig sein?
Als Bürger der Europäischen Union darf mir die Bundesrepublik Deutschland nicht einfach meine deutsche Staatsbürgerschaft wegnehmen, ohne dabei zu prüfen, ob das zu den Folgen, die das für mich hat, in einem vernünftigen Verhältnis steht. Davor schützt mich europäisches Recht, dass mein Staat das mit mir macht. Das hatte vor acht Jahren im epochalen Fall Rottmann der EuGH entschieden. Wird der Luxemburger Gerichtshof diese Rechtsprechung jetzt wieder relativieren? Continue reading >>27 February 2017
Stateless persons’ entitlement to citizenship – and Denmark’s call for dilution of state obligations in this regard
The UN statelessness convention obliges member states to grant citizenship to persons born on their soil who would otherwise be stateless. Denmark, with very little success so far, is pushing for a renegotiation of that obligation, allegedly for security reasons. What is behind this effort? Could maybe the Danish initiative prove even beneficial by laying the ground for more international cooperation on citizenship law matters? Continue reading >>14 July 2016
After Brexit: Time for a further Decoupling of European and National Citizenship?
According to the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, the issue of Scotland’s EU membership after Brexit is ‘a matter for the UK’. That statement is simply false: the future EU citizenship of UK nationals is not a domestic matter but an issue – perhaps the issue – for the Union as a whole to determine. Continue reading >>24 October 2015
The Delvigne judgment and the European franchise: going boldly… but perhaps not boldly enough
In it's recent "Delvigne" decision, the Court took a rather bold stance on the material scope of the right to vote and to stand as a candidate at elections to the European Parliament. I will however also argue that, in some respect, this stance was not bold enough. Continue reading >>
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13 August 2015