Toothless European Citizenship / Šimon Uradnik

3. LEGAL CHARACTER OF UNION CITIZENSHIP: AUTONOMY? The premise that either the factual relation or the legal relation should provide protection for a citizen of the Union against an involuntary deprivation of his or her Union citizenship unreservedly by a Member State has been presented in the previous chapter. Nonetheless, the factual relation in the form of the genuine link in citizenship of the Union has not been found. What remains is the legal relation in the developed concept of the direct bond. Hence, if the presence of the direct bond in Union citizenship is found, such a legal relation could not be severed by any legal subject other than the European Union or a Union citizen. To find the direct bond in citizenship of the Union, two prerequisites must be met — whether the formstatus of Union citizenship may be considered autonomous, and whether the contentrights of Union citizenship may be considered nonvicarious. The former is the focal point of this chapter. The question to answer is where the form-status originates and if, potentially when, it acquires an autonomous character on the nationality of a Member State. The concept of autonomy may be the very needed impetus for the development of citizenship of the Union beyond its embryonic stage. 165 Nonetheless, in order to take into account, let alone even consider the potential attainment of the autonomy of the form status of Union citizenship, it is inevitable to return to the beginnings of where and how it emerges. Only then, on these grounds, can the autonomy be assessed. For these reasons, the first section examines the origin of the form-status of citizenship of the Union — different iura , on which the emergence of Union citizenship stands, and the rules of which are afterwards utilised in the assessment of the following section. The second part henceforth covers the issue of the autonomy of the form-status of Union citizenship on the basis of an assessment from the perspective of postulates of the normative legal theory in conjunction with the logical interpretation of the wording of the article regarding citizenship of the Union. 3.1 Origin of Form-Status From the wording of the article establishing citizenship of the Union — ‘Every person holding the nationality of a Member State shall 165 As would have Spanish Socialist members of the Convention called. For this purpose, see Contributo del Sig. Josep Borrell, membro della Convenzione, e dei Sigg. Carlos Carnero e Diego López Garrido, membri supplenti della Convenzione: “Una costituzione europea per la pace, la solidarieta è i diritti umani” [2002] CONV 455/02, 10.

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