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A QUALIFIED DEFENCE OF THE PRIMACY OF NATIONALITY OVER EUROPEAN UNION CITIZENSHIP
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2019
Abstract
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.
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- Copyright © The Author (2019). Published by Cambridge University Press for the British Institute of International and Comparative Law.
Footnotes
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.
References
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103 ibid.
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105 ibid 22.
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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.