Toothless European Citizenship / Šimon Uradnik

a citizen of the Union finds himself or herself in a direct relationship with the Union, its legal order and with the European Commission; wherefore, the Member States’ role could be scarcely considered as of ‘intermediaries’ of this right. Ergo, were it not for the Member States, Union citizens would continue to enjoy the right of European citizens’ initiative. Whence it might be concluded that the right of European citizen’s initiative is truly nonvicarious. One might however doubt whether this right exists for the whole period of time when an individual is a citizen of the Union, or whether this right comes into being only when an individual reaches the age to be entitled to vote in elections to the European Parliament 278 as the Regulation enshrines. 279 The Court of Justice stated in Case of Ruiz Zambrano that the relevant and crucial issue was not whether an individual — a child — had already exercised the right, but instead the potential ‘genuine enjoyment of the substance of the rights attaching to the status of European Union citizen’. 280 Through a fairly analogical approach to it, the author is of the opinion that the right of European citizens’ initiative exists in individual cases for the entire period when an individual is a Union citizen; nevertheless, in the tacit form. To conclude this chapter; the author has had no intention to submit exhaustive research on the European Union citizens’ rights, but instead a narrow assessment of selected ones through the lens of nonvicarious formula. An important aspect was not, primarily, the organisation of the exercise of those rights itself but rather the exclusivity of the European Union legal order, of acquis communautaire . From the political rights abovepresented, the gradual nonvicariousness and directness is more than palpable. The municipal voting rights, under the current form of government, will never be nonvicarious by the Member States since they are in a straight line with their structures and legal orders. However, the European Parliament voting rights, under the same form of government, might be one day — the day when they are held on the basis of one uniform European electoral act. In the end, the right 278 The age to be entitled to vote in elections to the European Parliament is eighteen in all Member States, except of Greece with seventeen, and Malta and Austria with sixteen. For this purpose, see accessed 15 th June 2023. 279 Regulation (EU) 2019/788 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 April 2019 on the European citizens‘ initiative [2019] OJ L 130/55 Article 2 paragraph 1. 280 Case C-34/09 Ruiz Zambrano [2011] ECLI:EU:C:2011:124 paragraph 45.

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