Toothless European Citizenship / Šimon Uradnik

Wherefore, citizenship of the Union as a public legal relationship has been emerging at every point in time when the legal title — ius tractum in the form of European primary law establishing Union citizenship — intersects with the legal fact — a person holding the nationality of a Member State. This generalised perspective is capable of including all thinkable possibilities of the emergence of Union citizenship. Whether it was the establishment of Union citizenship in the year 1993 by the Treaty of Maastricht — the only situation when the legal fact de facto preceded the legal title, the lawful legal status; or accession of a new Member State to the European Union after the year 1993 — the legal title already existing and awaiting the fulfilment of the legal fact through lawful legal status; or the simple birth — the legal title anticipating the lawful legal event, which is how new-born Union citizens in the Member States acquire citizenship of the Union. Figure VII. − Emergence of Union citizenship

3.2.3 Autonomous Character of Existence of Union Citizenship As the theory prescribes, a legal relationship emerges, changes, or terminates once the legal title intersects with the legal fact. Therefore, the presence of the legal fact is relevant only at the point of the intersection with the legal title; whereas, for further existence, the legal fact is not crucial and what is more, not needed at all. Just as the nationality of a Member State as a public legal relationship emerges at the intersection of the legal title — eg, ius sanguinis , ius soli — with the legal fact — constitutive decision or birth — so does citizenship of the Union as a public legal relationship when the legal title — ius tractum — intersects with the legal fact — possession of a Member State’s nationality. Wherefore, just as neither does a Member State’s national need to be

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