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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2019
The relationship between EU citizenship and nationality is still defined by ‘linkage’ and ‘derivation’: national citizenship enjoys primacy over and conditions access to EU citizenship. However, because naturalisation decisions have a European dimension as well as a cross-border dimension, various commentators have questioned whether this primacy is desirable. This article examines alternative models of EU citizenship and argues that the answer is not to reconsider the criteria of ‘linkage’ and ‘derivation’, but to create some common EU rules on ‘access’ to national and EU citizenship. A particularly attractive solution is for rules on the grant of nationality to be guided by the idea of a ‘genuine link’. Reflecting on the Commission's recent report on investment citizenship within the EU and the debate it provoked, this article questions whether such shared rules can currently be adopted.
I want to thank the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Department of Ethics, Law, and Politics, where most of the research for this article was conducted. I want to thank my colleagues at the department for their invaluable input as well as audiences at conferences at the European University Institute in Florence and the University of Graz. Finally, I wish to thank Daniel Brocklehurst for his language corrections.
1 Art 20(1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.
2 For reflection on that question read some of the contributions to J Shaw (ed), ‘Has the European Court of Justice Challenged Member State Sovereignty in Nationality Law?’ EUI RSCAS 2011/62.
3 ‘Citizenship must not be up for sale’. Speech by Viviane Reding on 15 January 2004, available at <http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-14-18_en.htm>. Italics added.
4 Case C-135/08 Rottmann ECLI:EU:C:2010:104.
5 EU citizenship has been among the most prominent topics in the debate on Brexit. Proposals for decoupling EU citizenship from Member State nationality in order to protect UK citizens against deprivations of EU citizenship will be discussed below.
6 Shachar, A, ‘Picking Winners: Olympic Citizenship and the Global Race for Talent’ (2010) 120 YaleLJ 2088Google Scholar.
7 For an overview of these policies, d'Oliveira, HU Jessurun, ‘Iberian Nationality Legislation and Sephardic Jews’ (2015) 11 EuConst 13Google Scholar.
8 Dumbrava, C, ‘External Citizenship in EU Countries’ (2014) 37 Ethnic and Racial Studies 2340CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Harpaz, Y, ‘Ancestry into Opportunity: How Global Inequality Drives Demand for Long-Distance European Union Citizenship’ (2015) 41 Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 2081CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
9 The criteria of ‘linkage’, ‘derivation’ and ‘access’ are borrowed from Bauböck, R, ‘Why European Citizenship? Normative Approaches to Supranational Union’ (2007) 8 Theoretical Inquiries in Law 453CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
10 ibid.
11 Bauböck (ibid) offers a similar distinction with different terms.
12 Note that the federal model is presented as an ideal-type model and it is not suggested that no analogies can be drawn between EU citizenship as it currently exists and forms of citizenship belonging to the federal model. For an insightful study that highlights some of EU citizenship's federal characteristics: Schönberger, C, ‘European Citizenship as Federal Citizenship: Some Citizenship Lessons of Comparative Federalism’ (2007) 19 Revue Européenne de Droit Public 61Google Scholar.
13 To my knowledge, Switzerland is the only country that has not established the primacy of federal citizenship over local citizenship. For analyses, read ibid and Dardanelli, P, ‘Federal Democracy in Switzerland’ in Burgess, M and Gagnon, AG (eds), Federal Democracies (Routledge 2010)Google Scholar.
14 See also Bauböck (n 9).
15 Both would constitute significant changes when compared to the current state of affairs. Currently, EU citizens are denied the right to vote in national elections of Member States of which they do not possess nationality and many social entitlements are conditioned by periods of residence or employment.
16 Case C-369/90, Micheletti, ECLI: EU:C:1992:295, para 10; Rottmann (n 4) para 39.
17 Case C-184/99, Grzelczyk, ECLI:EU:C:2001:458; Case C-34/09 Ruiz Zambrano, ECLI:EU:C:2011:124.
18 M Dawson and D Augenstein, ‘After Brexit: Time for a further Decoupling of European and National Citizenship?’ <https://verfassungsblog.de/brexit-decoupling-european-national-citizenship/>.
19 Weiler, JHH, ‘Epilogue: Judging the Judges – Apology and Critique’ in Adams, M et al. (eds), Judging Europe's Judges: The Legitimacy of the Case Law of the European Court of Justice (Hart Publishing 2013) 248Google Scholar.
20 Although Case C-221/17 Tjebbes and others ECLI:EU:C:2019:189 may have changed this somewhat. For a critical discussion of this decision, M van den Brink, ‘Bold, but without Justification? Tjebbes’ (2019) European Papers, Insight of 25 April 2019, 1–7. Previously the Court had decided in Rottmann that even rendering individuals stateless by depriving them of their national (and EU) citizenship could be compatible with the principle of proportionality and thus EU law.
21 On voting rights in national elections, Fabbrini, F, ‘The Political Side of EU Citizenship in the Context of EU Federalism’ in Kochenov, D (ed), EU Citizenship and Federalism: The Role of Rights (Cambridge University Press 2018)Google Scholar; Kochenov, D, ‘Free Movement and Participation in the Parliamentary Elections in the Member State of Nationality: An Ignored Link?’ (2009) 16 MJ 197Google Scholar; Bauböck, R, Cayla, Philippe and Seth, Catriona (eds), Should EU Citizens Living in Other Member States Vote There in National Elections? (EUI RSCAS Working Paper 2012)Google Scholar. For some accounts that favour equal access to social benefits, O'Brien, C, ‘Civis Capitalist Sum: Class as the New Guiding Principle of EU Free Movement Rights’ (2016) 53 CMLRev 937Google Scholar; Neuvonen, PJ, Equal Citizenship and Its Limits in EU Law: We The Burden (Hart Publishing 2016)Google Scholar; Kostakopoulou, D, ‘Ideas, Norms and European Citizenship: Explaining Institutional Change’ (2005) 68 MLR 233CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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24 de Witte, F, Justice in the EU: The Emergence of Transnational Solidarity (Oxford University Press 2015) 132CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Neuvonen (n 21) Ch 2; O'Brien (n 21).
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28 This is clearest in the work of Neuvonen (n 21) 6.
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31 For such visions on the role of the State see Song, S, ‘The Boundary Problem in Democratic Theory: Why the Demos Should Be Bounded by the State’ (2012) 4 International Theory 39, 58CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Blake, M, ‘Distributive Justice, State Coercion, and Autonomy’ (2001) 30 Philosophy & Public Affairs 257CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sangiovanni (n 29).
32 Sangiovanni (n 22).
33 See ibid.
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38 Song (n 31) 59.
39 Sangiovanni (n 29).
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43 Sangiovanni (n 22); de Witte (n 24).
44 Art 7(2) of Regulation (EU) No 492/2011 on freedom of movement for workers within the Community of 5 April 2011 (OJ L141/1). See also Art 24(2) on the right of citizens of the Union and their family members to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States of 29 April 2004 (OJ L229/35).
45 Art 7(3) of Directive 2004/38.
46 Art 16(1) of Directive 2004/38.
47 Bellamy (n 34) Ch 5.
48 Martinsen, D Sindbjerg and Rotger, G Pons, ‘The Fiscal Impact of EU Immigration on the Tax-Financed Welfare State: Testing the “Welfare Burden” Thesis’ (2017) 18 European Union Politics 620CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Martinsen, D Sindbjerg and Werner, B, ‘No Welfare Magnets – Free Movement and Cross-Border Welfare in Germany and Denmark Compared’ (2019) 26 Journal of European Public Policy 637CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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50 Art 22 TFEU.
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52 Kochenov (n 30).
53 See some of the contributions in Bauböck, Cayla and Seth (n 21).
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57 For different variations of this argument, read Song (n 31); Pevnick (n 41); Bauböck, R, ‘Morphing the Demos into the Right Shape. Normative Principles for Enfranchising Resident Aliens and Expatriate Citizens’ (2015) 22 Democratization 820CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
58 Bellamy (n 34) 167.
59 For discussion on the different options, Bauböck, Cayla and Seth (n 21).
60 Art 20(1) TFEU.
61 It is among the options proposed by Garner, but he also recognises its disadvantages and is hesitant about the idea. Garner, O, ‘The Existential Crisis of Citizenship of the European Union: The Argument for an Autonomous Status’ (2018) 20 Cambridge Yearbook of European Legal Studies 116, 144CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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64 Garner (n 61).
65 Kostakopoulou has supported that solution in the past, believing that national, political and social membership should not depend upon a degree of identification with the national political culture, supported by national citizenship, but upon residence as EU citizens within the national community alone. Kostakopoulou (n 63).
66 Dawson and Augenstein (n 62).
67 ibid.
68 Kostakopoulou (n 63) 4.
69 Dawson and Augenstein (n 62).
70 ibid.
71 Christiano, T, The Rule of the Many: Fundamental Issues in Democratic Theory (Westview Press 1996)Google Scholar.
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77 Nicolaïdis (n 76) 359.
78 Young, IM, ‘Self-Determination as Non-Domination: Ideals Applied to Palestine/Israel’ (2005) 5 Ethnicities 139CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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80 Think of the European Convention on Nationality, signed in Strasbourg on 6 November 1997. Not all Member States have signed or ratified this instrument however.
81 Case C-135/08 Rottmann, Opinion of AG Maduro, ECLI:EU:C:2009:588.
82 Dawson and Augenstein (n 62).
83 Opinion of AG Maduro (n 81) para 23.
84 European Parliament Resolution on EU Citizenship for Sale (2014) <http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=TA&language=EN&reference=P7-TA-2014-0038>.
85 Report from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, ‘Investor Citizenship and Residence Schemes in the European Union’, Brussels 23 January 2019 (COM(2019) 12 final).
86 Rottmann (n 4) para 46.
87 For a selection of proposals on the retention of EU citizenship for UK nationals following Brexit, Dawson and Augenstein (n 62); Kostakopoulou (n 63); Roeben, V et al. , ‘Revisiting Union Citizenship from a Fundamental Rights Perspective in the Time of Brexit (2018) 5 EHRLR 450Google Scholar.
88 Bellamy (n 34) Ch 5.
89 These include the right to vote the European Parliament, the right to petition the Ombudsman, and some family reunification rights that are independent of free movement, as decided in Ruiz Zambrano (n 17).
90 Commission report (n 85).
91 Transparency International and Global Witness, ‘European Getaway: Inside the Murky World of Golden Visas’ (2018) available at <https://www.globalwitness.org/ru/campaigns/corruption-and-money-laundering/european-getaway/>.
92 ibid 19.
93 Bauböck (n 9) 484.
94 Commission report (n 85) 6.
95 Nottebohm (Liechtenstein v Guatemala), 1955 ICJ Rep 4 (6 April).
96 D Kochenov, ‘Investor Citizenship and Residence: The EU Commission's Incompetent Case for Blood and Soil’ available at <https://verfassungsblog.de/investor-citizenship-and-residence-the-eu-commissions-incompetent-case-for-blood-and-soil/>.
97 Micheletti (n 16).
98 P Spiro, ‘Nottebohm and “Genuine Link”: Anatomy of a Jurisprudential Illusion’ IMC Research Papers 2019/1, 16.
99 ibid 22.
100 ibid 22 and the references elsewhere in the paper.
101 For such theoretical arguments, Shachar, A, The Birthright Lottery: Citizenship and Global Inequality (HUP Press 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Carens, J, The Ethics of Immigration (Oxford University Press 2013)Google Scholar; Bauböck, R, ‘Democratic Inclusion: A Pluralist Theory of Citizenship’ in Owen, D (ed), Democratic Inclusion: Rainer Bauböck in Dialogue (Manchester University Press 2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
102 Spiro (n 98) 17.
103 ibid.
104 ibid 20.
105 ibid 22.
106 Bauböck (n 101) 44.
107 See also Carens (n 101) 165.
108 Arts 3–6 TFEU.
109 For an analysis, Sarmiento, D and van den Brink, M, ‘EU Competence and Investor Migration’ in Kochenov, D and Surak, K (eds), The Law of Citizenship and Money (Cambridge University Press forthcoming)Google Scholar; Oosterom-Staples, H, ‘The Triangular Relationship Between Nationality, EU Citizenship and Migration in EU Law: A Tale of Competing Competences’ (2018) 65 NILR 431CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
110 Rottmann (n 4) para 41
111 S Carrera, ‘How Much Does EU Citizenship Cost? The Maltese Citizenship-for-Sale Affair: A Breakthrough for Sincere Cooperation in Citizenship of the Union?’ (2014) CEPS Paper No 64.
112 Directive (EU) 2018/843 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 May 2018 amending Directive (EU) 2015/849 on the prevention of the use of the financial system for the purposes of money laundering or terrorist financing, and amending Directives 2009/138/EC and 2013/36/EU.