Rounding up the Circle: The Mutation of Member States' Nationalities under Pressure from EU Citizenship

Abstract

The European integration project has shaped a legal reality where the importance of particular Member State nationalities is dwarfed in relation to that of EU citizenship. Currently the Member States’ nationalities, short of being abolished in the legal sense, mostly serve as access points to the status of EU citizenship, which has also come to influence the rules for the acquisition of the Member States' nationalities. Six Member States already provide for different naturalization procedures for the acquisition of nationality for those already in possession of the EU citizenship status. The majority of the assumptions regarding Member State nationalities stand to be profoundly questioned today. EU citizenship is no longer a merely derivative status, leading to the need for re-conceptualization of its relationship with the nationalities of the Member States, if not opening a new chapter in the process of European integration.

Keywords: EU, citizenship, nationality, naturalization, EU legal order, division of competences, citizenship rights, non-discrimination, citizenship, belonging, denizenship, sovereignty, future of Europe, ECJ