Toothless European Citizenship / Šimon Uradnik

examination must be individually conducted in order to secure that ‘the normal development of his or her family and professional life from the point of view of EU law’ 83 would not be affected ‘disproportionately’. 84 On the contrary, Dimitry Kochenov perceived the judgement as an absolute failure where the Court of Justice did not follow up and did not continue in the previous promisingly evolving case-law. Amongst many other arguments, he recited, exempli gratia , that the loss of Union citizenship as the fundamental status because of not renewing a passport is absurd. 85 Also, he pointed out an unequal and discriminatory assessment of the legal status, on the one hand, of Union citizens who possess some of the Member States’ nationalities and the thirdcountry nationality at the same time, and of Union citizens who possess some of the nationalities of Member State solely on the other. The latter would not be harmed by Dutch law thanks to an instrument against statelessness, whereas the former would be; wherefore he or she would lose citizenship of the Union also. 86 Whilst the enhancement of requirements for the test of proportionality might be viewed as beneficial to Union citizenship, it must also be conceded that the Court did not settle all of the concerns of the loss or deprivation of citizenship of the Union through the loss or deprivation of the nationality of a Member State; the concerns that appeared in similar cases again in the years to come. 87 Another narrative-expanding ruling appeared relatively recently in Case of Wiener Landesregierung, 88 the factual circumstances of 83 Case C-221/17 Tjebbes [2019] ECLI:EU:C:2019:189, paragraph 44. 84 These ‘disproportionatelies’ includes ‘particular difficulties in continuing to travel to the Netherlands or to another Member State in order to retain genuine and regular links with members of his or her family, to pursue his or her professional activity or to undertake the necessary steps to pursue that activity’. To that effect, see Case C-221/17 Tjebbes [2019] ECLI:EU:C:2019:189, paragraph 46. 85 Dimitry Kochenov, ‘The Tjebbes Fail’ (2019) 4/1 European Papers 324-325 accessed 15 th March 2023. 86 Ibid 327. 87 The referring court has nonetheless decided that the decisions regarding the losses of nationalities, thus Union citizenships as well, had not been proportional and with due regard to Union law. According to G.-R. de Groot, retaining such legal provisions would cause more problems than benefits in the future since the individual assessment in each particular case would be rather time-consuming. For that purpose, see Gerard René de Groot, ‘A follow-up decision by the Council of State of the Netherlands in the Tjebbes case’ (18 th February 2020) Global Citizenship Observatory accessed 15 th March 2023. 88 Case C-118/20 Wiener Landesregierung [2022] ECLI:EU:C:2022:34.

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