This seminar will reflect on the ruling of the Court of Justice in EP v Préfet du Gers, which determined that there is ‘an inseparable and exclusive link between possession of the nationality of a Member State and not only the acquisition, but also the retention, of the status of citizen of the Union’.
Following a brief overview of the background to the case, the Opinion of Advocate General Collins, and the ruling of the Court of Justice, it will be suggested that the Court provided the ‘right’ answer to the questions referred to it from the perspective of EU citizenship law. However, the seminar will also explore the protection of the individual in the wider system of EU law. Most discussions about the fate of British nationals following Brexit focus on Union citizenship as a status and examine the extent to which legal protection can be sustained by those who were once but are no longer Member State nationals on the basis of Articles 20 and/or 21 TFEU. This seminar considers more generally the ideas conceived in Van Gend en Loos as regards the rights that become part of the ‘legal heritage’ of Member State nationals. It explores the relationship in EU law between the Union, the Member States, and Member State nationals; and argues that while Union citizenship may well be the ‘intended to be the fundamental status’ of the latter, it does not represent the beginning and the end of their protection under EU law.
Participate via Zoom: https://uio.zoom.us/j/66290855867?pwd=aDFJSWtxa0N0NVNEQjJjelluYURyUT09