Talk:European Union citizenship

Germany
At a Glance On March 26, 2024, the legislative process for the citizenship law was completed and the law will enter into force on June 26, 2024.

Among other changes, the law will:

- reduce the minimum period of German residence necessary for naturalization to five years (and even three years in exceptional circumstances), down from eight years.

- allow German citizens to hold multiple citizenships whereas currently, dual citizenship is possible only in rare circumstances.

This law is expected to increase uptake of German citizenship, especially as many potential citizenship applicants are citizens of other countries and therefore currently barred from naturalizing without giving up their current citizenship. It is also likely to make Germany a more attractive labour market for foreign talent, as access to a German passport will be easier.

Source: https://www.fragomen.com/insights/germany-new-citizenship-law-to-enter-into-force-in-june-2024.html

Germany information is outdated.

WHAT?!?!
How can the concept of EU citizenship have been introduced by the Maastricht treaty in 1992, when it is explicitly referred to in a treaty nearly 40 years before? -signed everyone —Preceding unsigned comment added by 163.1.142.47 (talk) 15:21, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

See first two portions of the article. Maastricht in 1992, vs. TFEU in the 1950s. I think there's a problem with 'supplementary' to national citizenship. The text, I think, says eu citizenship is 'over and above' national citizenship, replacing the earlier 'supplementary' notion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.107.153.120 (talk) 21:10, 15 October 2012 (UTC) teodora je ovde bila — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.135.18.212 (talk) 10:09, 16 November 2018 (UTC) MALA TEA JE OVDE BILA — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.135.18.212 (talk) 11:04, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

Denmark
Nationals of Denmark are now Union citizens, following the Treaty of Amsterdam. See the following: Dubitante (talk) 11:54, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * http://www.eu-oplysningen.dk/euo_en/dkeu/edinburgh/
 * http://www.um.dk/en/menu/EU/TheDanishOptouts/
 * http://www.um.dk/Publikationer/UM/English/FactsheetDenmark/DenmarkAndTheEuropeanUnion/html/chapter01.htm
 * http://www.denmark.dk/en/menu/AboutDenmark/GovernmentPolitics/DenmarkAndTheEU/TheDanishOptouts/

Denmark is currently marked as not allowing dual citizenship, with a citation that leads to a "page not found". Thus that citation should be fixed and removed. Additionally, I know it to be not strictly true as I am a citizen of both Denmark (by descent) and the US (by birth). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cruxador (talk • contribs) 00:55, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Not accepted by governments
"Member States" (see Grzelczyk v Centre Public d'Aide Sociale d'Ottignes-Louvain-la-Neuve Case C-184/99 [2001] ECR I-6193, para 31) [6]. The European Commission has affirmed that Union citizenship should be the fundamental status of EU nationals. This is not accepted by many of the national governments."

Which national governments do not accept this. It would be clearer to tell, else this statement could be considered as opinion couldn't it?


 * Perhaps you could say which national governments do accept this idea?   The United Kingdom does not.   JAJ 22:28, 17 June 2006 (UTC)


 * The European Court of Justice has ruled that this citizenship should be the fundamental status of EU nationals. If the UK government doesn't accept this - don't think that is true - it has no importance as the ECJ is the highest court concerning EU law. There is no right of appeal to this decision, so the UK government just has to accept this ruling. Maartenvdbent 12:32, 4 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Details at this page. The context is clearly that citizens of EU member states should be treated equally in the fields covered by Community law.  There is no suggestion that a so-called "EU citizenship" should thereby replace national citizenship.  JAJ 05:15, 13 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Whoever is saying that? The ECoJ is saying that EU citizenship is a fundamental status of EU nationals, that's all. You say that "this is not accepted by many of the national governments", I doubt that, but if they do not accept that it has no meaning as jurisdiction of the ECoJ has precedence over national court rulings.


 * By the way, the Treaty of Rome rules that EU citizenship should never replace national citizenship:

Article 17 1. Citizenship of the Union is hereby established. Every person holding the nationality of a Member State shall be a citizen of the Union. Citizenship of the Union shall complement and not replace national citizenship.


 * Maartenvdbent 08:41, 13 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Until this article is amended, of course, which it should be as the Union naturally progresses towards being a single highly federal state. :) &mdash; Nightst a  llion  (?) 09:45, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

It might be more useful to explain what fundamental status means. In the context of Grzelcyk, it didn't mean that he had an absolute right to benefits after all, just a right to a proportionate rather than automatic response from the State195.33.121.133 18:44, 28 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I have gone some way to reflecting this thought in the new text. Dubitante (talk) 09:31, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

My personal opinion is that "fundamental" is akin to "foundational". It indicates the basis upon which something else rests, like the foundation of a building. Since "every person holding the nationality of a Member State" is the basis upon which EU citizenship "shall be", it is the "nationality of a Member State" upon which EU citizenship is founded. On the other hand, "fundamental" also means "underlying". It is the supportive character of the EU, which grants rights supplementary to, and protective of, those of nationals of Member States, which lends legitimacy to its claim to fundamentality. Therefore, I find no fault in the claim of either usage, unless a legal definition of "fundamental", recognized by him who uses the word, be summoned up in an effort to contest the facts clearly expressed in Article 17, in which case, it is a matter of deciding which has the overriding legal authority: Article 17, or the legal definition (possibly written into a statute). I don't contest the UK's right to express an opinion contrary to mine, but it seems to me a purely semantic matter, signifying nothing with respect to Article 17, in which no such concept as "fundamental" is invoked, and the issues of dependency, inclusion, and complementarity are evident. Unfree (talk) 08:12, 13 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Another point. Discussions above carelessly refer to "citizens" of Member States and "nationals" of the Union. Article 17 avoids such language, referring to "citizenship" of both the Union and of its Member States, but avoiding the use of "nationals" of the Union.  In interpreting it, "EU national" has no relevance. Unfree (talk) 08:25, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Agreed, ecept that I believe that the term "EU national" is invalid, that there is no such status. A person is a 'national' only of a member state but is a 'citizen' both of the member state and of the Union. --Red King (talk) 10:49, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Both are true? more precision
I am not sure to understand with precision what you say, but I blieve both next points will give you some usefull light on this issue: According to jurisprudence:
 * «Pour déterminer si une personne a la qualité de ressortissant du Royaume-Uni de Grande-Bretagne et d'Irlande du Nord au sens du droit communautaire, il y a lieu de se référer à la déclaration de 1982 du gouvernement du Royaume-Uni de Grande-Bretagne et d'Irlande du Nord concernant la définition du terme «ressortissants» remplaçant la déclaration de 1972 du gouvernement du Royaume-Uni de Grande-Bretagne et d'Irlande du Nord concernant la définition du terme «ressortissants», annexée à l'acte final du traité relatif à l'adhésion aux Communautés européennes du royaume de Danemark, de l'Irlande et du Royaume-Uni de Grande-Bretagne et d'Irlande du Nord.» . (Arrêt de la Cour du 20 février 2001. - The Queen contre Secretary of State for the Home Department, ex parte: Manjit Kaur, en présence de: Justice. - Demande de décision préjudicielle: High Court of Justice (England & Wales), Queen's Bench Division (Crown Office) - Royaume-Uni. - Citoyenneté de l'Union - Nationalité d'un Etat membre - Déclarations du Royaume-Uni concernant la définition du terme 'ressortissant' - Citoyen britannique d'outre-mer. - Affaire C-192/99. )

Insert non-formatted text here
 * « Les enfants d'un citoyen de l'Union européenne qui se sont installés dans un État membre alors que leur parent exerçait des droits de séjour en tant que travailleur migrant dans cet État membre sont en droit d'y séjourner afin d'y poursuivre des cours d'enseignement général, conformément à l'article 12 du règlement (CEE) n_ 1612/68 du Conseil, du 15 octobre 1968, relatif à la libre circulation des travailleurs à l'intérieur de la Communauté. Le fait que les parents des enfants concernés ont entre-temps divorcé, le fait que seul l'un des parents est un citoyen de l'Union et que ce parent n'est plus un travailleur migrant dans l'État membre d'accueil ou le fait que les enfants ne sont pas eux-mêmes des citoyens de l'Union n'ont à cet égard aucune incidence.» . ( Arrêt de la Cour du 17 septembre 2002. - Baumbast et R contre Secretary of State for the Home Department. - Demande de décision préjudicielle: Immigration Appeal Tribunal - Royaume-Uni. - Libre circulation des personnes - Travailleur migrant - Droits de séjour des membres de la famille du travailleur migrant - Droits des enfants de poursuivre leurs études dans l'État membre d'accueil - Articles 10 et 12 du règlement (CEE) nº 1612/68 - Citoyenneté de l'Union européenne - Droit de séjour - Directive 90/364/CEE - Limitations et conditions. - Affaire C-413/99. )

Arguments used in support of the two-tier view
You dont need to put this is in even its stupid information cant we just have information regarding EU Citizenship for all Europeans instead of this two tier crap, it actually is not two tier.Pryde 01 (talk) 13:53, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Maintain Wikipedia policy:How to use article talk pages

Be polite please, you are using a talk page. Stupid and crap is not an argument.

Discuss edits: If one of your edits has been reverted, and you change it back again, it is good practice to leave an explanation on the talk page and a note in the edit summary that you have done so.Communicate: If in doubt, make the extra effort so that other people understand you, and you get a proper understanding of others. Being friendly is a great help. It is always a good idea to explain your views; it is less helpful for you to voice an opinion on something and not explain why.

Stay objective: The best way to present a case is to find properly referenced material.

Thank you Warrington (talk) 21:54, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

That two tier information is not needed because nearly all EU Member States have full reciprocity of Visa Free Access anyway the only ones remaining to get Full Visa Free Reciprocity is Romania and Bulgaria and that should be solved soon in the near future. The second thing is that many EU Citizens from CE and EE do not need work permits for most of the Western Europe part of the EU, for the EU States that joined in 2004 basically the get full Freedom of Workers even before the expiry date in 2011. EU States Romania and Bulgaria have already had a big wave of Free Movement of Workers they currently have 15 out of 25 EU States that have given them Full Freedom of Workers. Romania and Bulgaria only need 10 more EU States to go and they are expected to be lifted in 3 years time on 31st December 2011.

That information regarding unfairness in the so called two tier system is not true, on most cases. The problem is not sufficient enough to include that information.Pryde 01 (talk) 03:52, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

The treaty of lisbon
This article lacks information on how Citizenship of the European Union will work after the treaty of lisbon is ratified. I don't now enough about the subject to write about it myself. Nxsty (talk) 12:44, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Restructring and citations
This article needs some serious rewriting, as is noted and which hasn't been changed sufficiently to remove since January (2009). The Citizen Rights Directive section can be removed and simply put in the preceding section, as it does not warrant its own section which has a single statement. Similarly, the mention of different treatments of different nationalities within the EU, with 'third countries' and the potential for 'second-class citizens', is POV and doesn't address the point that a UK or Swedish national derive their rights to international travel from their respective member state, as do citizens of Romania or Bulgaria, with EU citizenship not acting as the basis by which they can enter a country visa free (unless this is specifically the case, in which case you'd need to cite the reference). Finally, there are numerous examples of non-cited statements, such as the reference that EU (and international) law would not allow a member state to grant citizenship to members of a non-member state. In the EU context, for instance, there are issues which could be brought up from the French and British examples, through their remaining colonial possessions. The UK granting British citizenship to all its British Overseas Territories citizens (with some exceptions) would be an excellent example of this, if someone did the research to show what the EU's legal position was, but it equally shows that there is no international law which forbids this (as the UK did it). So there needs to be better structuring and citations. I'm bringing this up so that people can respond, but this article will need to be cleaned up. Roche-Kerr (talk) 02:10, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Question
"...until the end of 2013. At the year 2013 the restrictions...shall be lifted permanently." Which is it then, "at the year" or "at the end of the year"? Unfree (talk) 07:32, 13 March 2010 (UTC)


 * This issue has been resolved.

"Exclusion of some UK and Denmark territories"
Currently, this section only comprises one (unreferenced) sentence on Greenland. There is no mention of the UK. Does this really need its own section, anyway? It could probably be merged into another section. Hayden120 (talk) 03:06, 14 May 2010 (UTC)


 * The section under complaint is no longer in the article. If anyone has additional info and references regarding the EU status of persons from Danish (Faroe/Greenland), Dutch (Antilles/Curacao/Aruba/Guyana), French (Guyana/Martinique) overseas territories, or British Crown Dependencies (Mann/Jersey/Guernsey), feel free to make a section on this topic.

Citizenship Acquisition TABLE
The table on acquisition of member state citizenships by birth, descent, naturalization, etc is in need of completion and clarification. We must clarify what the column headings mean.

1. Any conditions including a child's birth in the country should be placed in the "birth" column, NOT in the "descent" column, even if the parents are mentioned in the wording. Only conditions providing for the inheritance of citizenship without birth in the country should be placed in the "descent" column.

This is because no EU country's laws use pure jus soli -- most lean towards jus sanguinis. This means that all items in the "birth" column, except for those relating to foundlings, will include conditions about the parents' citizenship, or at least about their long term residence.

2. What do "yes" and "no" mean in the "marriage" column? All EU countries eventually grant marriage to cohabitating resident spouses of citizens. No EU country grants citizenship immediately upon marriage. So what do all the "no"s in this column mean? Perhaps the author of the "yes"/"no" items is referring to the eventual acquisition of citizenship without residence in the country (e.g. France, Italy)? These binary responses should be explained/removed/replaced.

3. The table is in need of completion. EUDO Citizenship Observatory and wiki pages like Swedish nationality law, Hungarian nationality law etc might help. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bnorpsk (talk • contribs) 22:14, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Passport edit
I unfortunately did not enter my full edit summary for my most recent edit. For the record, I would have said, "Ok, some points: One, fixing and including largest countries by population in order of population. Two, for the love of God, don't play favorites on Wikipedia. And three, they are useful because they symbolize the mix of unity and soverignty in the EU." Trinitresque (talk) 21:01, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Summary of member states' nationality laws
This section needs more reliable sources. If you can please add reliable sources. Hingeabaciu (talk) 02:10, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Dual citizenship in the table of summary of citizenships
The dual citizenship has principle that it is allowed only for citizens who obtained citizenship but not for those who got it in naturalisation. However for some countries it has worded as no, and for some countries as yes. Maybe to add another colour, which categorises these separately from yes and no. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.111.184.7 (talk) 23:05, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Acquisition
"(one cannot be an EU citizen without being a national of a member state)."

What is this based on? The language of Art. 20 TFEU is not exhaustive and does not expressly restrict citizenship of the Union to nationals of member states. Art.19 TEU stipulates that the CJEU shall ensure that in the interpretation and and application of the treaties the law is observed. This leaves the possibility of citizenship of the Union extending to a non-national where it would be inconsistent with fundamental law otherwise. The categorical assertion that 'one cannot be an EU citizen [citizen of the Union] without being a national of a member state' as far as I know has no foundation in EU law whatsover.

I know that this assumption is widespread and made in various textbooks and websites. However this is neither acte clair or acte eclaire, i.e. this is an unsubstantiated opinion and unquestioned assumption, not an established fact.

Dannizen (talk) 15:14, 21 May 2015 (UTC)


 * The announcement that the EU may allow British nationals to keep EU citizenship after Brexit suggests they share your interpretation. Stub Mandrel (talk) 11:43, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Citizenship of the European Union. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20071014021403/http://www.denmark.dk:80/en/menu/AboutDenmark/GovernmentPolitics/DenmarkAndTheEU/TheDanishOptouts to http://www.denmark.dk/en/menu/AboutDenmark/GovernmentPolitics/DenmarkAndTheEU/TheDanishOptouts/

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Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 07:41, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Has the UK been kicked out already?
How come the UK has been excluded from the collection of passport images at top right? Stub Mandrel (talk) 11:41, 30 March 2017 (UTC)
 * There are only 15 out of 28 pictures. Malta would be a better choice than UK: UK is not needed here because in less than a few days it will no more be an EU member, yet. However a specific Brexit section might be inserted in this article to deal with post-Brexit UK-EU citizenship as discussed in the 75% agreed agreement which is not at all agreed  (no deal)  as long as it is not fully (100%) agreed... How could wikipedia deal with such uncertainties? If you have sources you could provide them.
 * Also, the UK has neither been kicked out nor excluded by a third party, but by her own will: UK, being a sovereign state, just does her exit from the collection of passport images, where exit is an hypocorism of Brexit which mean Brexit, like Sandra is an hypocorism of Cassandra...or Beth for Elizabeth. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.199.96.123 (talk) 22:25, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Contingency of EU citizenship on citizenship of a member state
Some recent changes, spread out over a number of sections/sub-sections and probably related to Brexit, appear to be arguing a legal case for EU citizenship that is not contingent upon the citizenship of a member state from time to time. The legal arguments do not appear to be sourced or attributed and seem to be stated or implied in Wikipedia's voice. I would suggest that we restore the version before these changes were made -- before they get too entangled with unrelated changes. --Boson (talk) 15:18, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I copyedited the IP's text. Perhaps allow 3 days for citations to to found? (I see that you've already placed the appropriate template.) --BushelCandle (talk) 15:55, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
 * OK. I have now removed the section on the result of "no deal". --Boson (talk) 08:50, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 04:06, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Eirepas.JPG

Categories
Are British nationality law and Irish nationality law common and consistent defining categories of European Union citizenship law ? I don't think so. The EU does not belong to the UK.

Also, European Union law is a parent category of European nationality law, and thus not needed here per WP:PARENTCAT. Same for, which is a Parentcat of European nationality law. Frenchl (talk) 10:39, 26 November 2023 (UTC)