EU Citizenship and Its Relevance to EU Exit and Secession

Abstract

One of the issues that has emerged in the public debate surrounding the possibility of exit or secession from the EU, but which has yet to be accorded the full weight it would deserve - despite a focus of attention in the past few months in view of the UK referendum results on BREXIT, is the relevance to that debate of the concept of EU citizenship. The increasing significance attributed thereto in recent years by the ECJ, and its gradual evolution through the ECJ’s jurisprudence, from a mostly symbolic concept to a basis for claims over concrete legal rights – as explored in detail elsewhere – raises the pertinent question whether the prospect of the loss of EU citizenship may, in an EU exit or an EU secession scenario, provide a basis for individual claims for its preservation.