Eu Citizenship

Any person who holds the nationality of an EU country is automatically also an EU citizen. European citizenship is supplementary to national citizenship and affords rights such as the right to vote in European elections, the right to free movement, settlement and employment across the EU, and the right to consular protection by other EU states' embassies when a person's country of citizenship does not maintain an embassy or consulate in the country they need protection in. These rights have been greatly developing in 21st century.

The newly introduced citizenship was not supposed to enlarge the scope of EU law. Citizens had to move around the Union to “activate” EU citizenship rights. Without a real connection with internal market these rights were not enforceable. With the decision in Grzelczyk case a general principle has started to develop: that discrimination on ground of nationality will not be allowed against EU citizens who have exercised their free movement rights.

Rottmann and Ruiz Zambrano are line of cases that goes beyond the efforts of fitting EU citizenship within the pre-existing context of the internal market, hinting at the total overhaul of the European integration paradigm, underlying the latest citizenship cases. Rottmann established that, the Member States do not have a legal monopoly to decide who EU citizens are. The Court stated that the principles of EU law are applicable to the cases of the loss and, hence, acquisition of Member States’ nationalities, which affect the EU citizenship status of the persons in question. EU citizenship rights were not reserved for exceptional situations of cross-border movement or relevance, unequivocally demonstrating its willingness to extend them also to the cases that would be regarded as lying out with the reach of EU law under the previously prevalent approach. Ruiz Zambrano clearly disconnected EU citizenship status from the internal market thinking. This case has recognised a right not to be pushed to leave the territory of the Union.  The Court considers that EU citizenship law precludes Belgium from refusing Mr. Ruiz Zambrano a right of residence and a work permit. His minor children, who are EU citizens, should not be deprived of the right to stay within the territory of the European Union.

Dereci is very similar in this regard. The ECJ thus dismisses all potential rights of EU citizenship which could be invoked, on the ground that they are not the particular right it used in Ruiz Zambrano. Unlike the situation in Ruiz Zambrano, there is no risk here that the Union citizens concerned may be deprived of their means of subsistence .The Court does not even consider any other rights whose substance is meaningful for EU citizens and is silent about the reasons behind its silence.