Abstract
Abstract It is almost ten years since Ruiz Zambrano decided that Article 20 TFEU precludes national measures which deprive EU citizens of the genuine enjoyment of the substance of their citizenship rights. The CJEU has since then clarified when the substance of rights test applies. This article highlights several inconsistencies and unresolved puzzles in the case law. First, contrary to what was initially suggested, EU citizens can be deprived of the substance of their rights. Second, contrary to what initial judgments suggested, the substance of rights test is not independent of but grounded in the right to free movement. This suggests that the same level of protection can be provided to EU citizens without this test, simply by relying on EU free movement law. The paper concludes by suggesting that these deficiencies can only be resolved by reconsidering the substance of rights test altogether.
Highlights
British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK martijn.vandenbrink@politics.ox.ac.uk. It is almost ten years since Ruiz Zambrano decided that Article 20 TFEU precludes national measures which deprive EU citizens of the genuine enjoyment of the substance of their citizenship rights
Keywords EU citizenship – Ruiz Zambrano – substance of rights – Article 20 TFEU. It is almost ten years since the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) decided that Article 20 TFEU ‘precludes national measures which have the effect of depriving citizens of the Union of the genuine enjoyment of the substance of the rights conferred by virtue of their status as citizens of
Ruiz Zambrano builds on the case of Rottmann, in which the CJEU decided that a decision to withdraw an individual of his or her Member State nationality falls ‘by reason of its nature and its consequences, within the ambit of European Union law’, if such a deprivation strips the national of the status and rights of EU citizenship ‘conferred by Article [20 TFEU]’
Summary
It is almost ten years since the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) decided that Article 20 TFEU ‘precludes national measures which have the effect of depriving citizens of the Union of the genuine enjoyment of the substance of the rights conferred by virtue of their status as citizens of. A New Jurisdiction Test; A Novel Chapter in the Development of the Union in Europe’, (2011) 18 Columbia Journal of European law, 55; Dimitry Kochenov and Sir Richard Plender, ‘EU Citizenship: From an Incipient Form to an Incipient Substance? The Discovery of the Treaty Text’, (2012) 37 European Law Review, 369; Michaela Hailbronner and Sara Iglesias Sánchez, ‘European Court of Justice and Citizenship of the European Union: New Developments towards a Truly Fundamental Status’, (2011) 5 Vienna J. on Int’l Const. European Journal of MigrationDaownndloaLdeadwfrom23Br(ill2.c0om2111)/0123/2–0221812:07:28PM via free access
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