Case C-181/19, Jobcenter Krefeld: The End of the Union Citizenship as Previously Understood?

The European Court of Justice has taken a restrictive approach vis-à-vis economically inactive Union citizens ever since its rulings Brey and Dano. In a recent preliminary ruling, Case C-181/19 Jobcenter Krefeld, the Court confirms this approach with regard to social security benefits that resemble social assistance. Such benefits fall, just as the Court in held in Brey and Dano, under the Citizenship Directive and can be made dependent upon a right to reside. Thereby, the Court holds that the Citizenship Directive overrule Regulation 883/2004, that coordinates social security benefits, and its equal treatment principle which rule out additional residence requirements. However, the Court clarifies that if there is a right to reside on basis of Regulation 492/2011, such a right overrides the more restrictive right to reside that follows from the Citizenship Directive. Different standards seem to apply to economically active Union citizens and economically inactive Union citizens. Challenges lie ahead for the Member States' administrations as different authorities apply the respective Union law instruments.

European Union citizenship: The acquisition of nationality and the ever-expansive reach of the European Court of Justice

<p>European Union citizenship was established by the Treaty of Maastricht in 1992. Intended to fall within the exclusive prerogative of the Member States, it soon became clear that the autonomy of Member States to determine matters relating to nationality would be restricted by the ever-expansive reach of the European Court of Justice. As such, the European Court of Justice transformed the law on citizenship in the 2010 case of Rottmann where measures affecting or depriving the rights conferred and protected by the European Union were held to fall within the scope ratione materiae of European Union law. While Rottmann affirmed the law as to the deprivation of European Union citizenship, it left unanswered the question whether the acquisition of nationality also falls within the scope of European Union law. This paper aims to identify and analyse the law arising post-Rottmann to determine whether the acquisition of nationality could fall within the scope of European Union law. It shall then analyse whether fundamental principles of European Union law, namely the principle of proportionality, could be applied in order to regulate the conditions imposed by Member States in relation to the acquisition of nationality.</p>

European Union citizenship: The acquisition of nationality and the ever-expansive reach of the European Court of Justice

<p>European Union citizenship was established by the Treaty of Maastricht in 1992. Intended to fall within the exclusive prerogative of the Member States, it soon became clear that the autonomy of Member States to determine matters relating to nationality would be restricted by the ever-expansive reach of the European Court of Justice. As such, the European Court of Justice transformed the law on citizenship in the 2010 case of Rottmann where measures affecting or depriving the rights conferred and protected by the European Union were held to fall within the scope ratione materiae of European Union law. While Rottmann affirmed the law as to the deprivation of European Union citizenship, it left unanswered the question whether the acquisition of nationality also falls within the scope of European Union law. This paper aims to identify and analyse the law arising post-Rottmann to determine whether the acquisition of nationality could fall within the scope of European Union law. It shall then analyse whether fundamental principles of European Union law, namely the principle of proportionality, could be applied in order to regulate the conditions imposed by Member States in relation to the acquisition of nationality.</p>

Integrating Europe and Demarcating States

The triumph of liberal constitutionalism in Europe after 1989 appeared to herald the end of a hard, limiting (nation) statehood and thereby to increasingly suspend the key function of citizenship—the granting of political affiliation, security, equality, and freedom. Human rights-based protections of individual freedom, as well as the legal consolidation and geographical expansion of European integration, call for new transnational concepts and institutions of political affiliation, which find their focus in European Union citizenship. However, this chapter, stretching from 1989 to the present, analyses how new, conflict-laden disputes about the borders of nation-states and their political affiliation are reviving old rivalries, particularly in the eastern states of the “New Europe.” The return to a protective concept of citizenship defining political affiliation according to imperial motives or ethnic criteria justifies doubts about the influential thesis claiming convergence in citizenship policy in Europe. The crises of Brexit, anti-immigration populism, and Covid instead remind citizens of Europe of their nationality.

Brexit and the stratified uses of national and European Union citizenship

In this article the authors explore how Brexit changes the social meanings and uses of formal national and EU citizenship and how these meanings and uses are stratified, including by migratory experience, class and age. They do so through in-depth interviews with Britons in Belgium, EU27 citizens ‘by birth’ residing in the UK, and Bangladeshis who naturalised in Italy before moving to the UK. The article highlights the differences both between the three groups and within the groups, along lines of class and age, in the expectations regarding rights linked to citizenship, in the salience of different rights (e.g. freedom of movement, access to welfare, voting), and in the availability of alternative resources to contain the impact of Brexit. The authors argue that the Brexit process not only highlights the value of citizenship as well as the added value of a citizenship of an EU member state, but that it also reveals how the value of citizenships is internally stratified.

A Europe Without Internal Frontiers: Challenging the Reintroduction of Border Controls in the Schengen Area in the Light of Union Citizenship

Border controls within the Schengen area are meant to be a thing of the past. Yet, since the refugee crisis of 2015, “temporary” border controls have become quasi permanent in several European Union Member States. Although these controls are against the letter and spirit of the Schengen Borders Code, the Commission has not taken any measures to enforce these rules. One of the reasons for the dismal state of the Schengen area is the one-sided focus on the abolition of internal border controls as primarily functional for the establishment of the internal market. This comes at the expense of Union citizens’ rights and disregards the fundamental role that the abolition of border controls has on how citizens see the Union in political terms and conceive themselves as Union citizens. Against this background, we argue that from its beginning the objective of the project to abolish border controls was to foster a supranational political identity of Union citizens by transforming citizens’ spatial experience. Union citizenship in the current EU Treaty framework constitutes the legal expression of that historical connection between the abolition of border controls and free movement. Emphasizing the citizenship dimension of an area without internal frontiers provides a different perspective on current controls at the Schengen internal borders.

Free Movement of Persons and Services

This chapter maps the most relevant aspects of the evolution of the free movement of persons and services through the analysis of the main legislative and judicial developments in both fields. After looking at the salient legislative transformations in the last decades and the effects of codification—mostly through Directives 2004/38 and 2006/123—the chapter explores the parameters that delimit the three different freedoms concerned—workers, establishment, and services. A reassessment of the place and scope of the provisions on the free movement of persons is then offered through a critical examination of the interrelationship between the regulatory framework and case law concerning the free movement of persons, the status of Union citizenship, and developments in the distinct but related Area of Freedom, Security and Justice.

13. Citizenship and free movement rights: beyond economic links

This chapter discusses Union citizenship and free movement of persons rights in the EU for Union citizens and their spouses, partners, children and dependants. It examines the Charter of Fundamental Rights, the European Convention on Human Rights, the Free Movement or Citizenship Directive and the principle of equal treatment. The chapter also considers the facets of Union citizenship and the political dimension of Union citizenship with reference to the European Citizens’ Initiative. It concludes with a discussion on some of the challenges of Union citizenship.