Toothless European Citizenship / Šimon Uradnik

citizenship, but it continued in the proclamation of Member States’ actions concerning acquisition and loss of the nationality of a Member State to fall within the scope ratione materiae of Union law as it did for the very first time in Case of Rottmann. Case of Rottmann 57 was one of the cases from the long series before the Court of Justice related to the matter of dual nationality and, especially for this monograph, of deprivation of the nationality of a Member State and Union citizenship, respectively. The Court of Justice pronounced a judgement on the legal situation of Janko Rottmann, who had originally been an Austrian national. After the accession of Austria to the EU, Rottmann automatically acquired Union citizenship which he used for resettlement to Germany, where he subsequently, after a mandatory period of residence, applied for German nationality. As was abovementioned, Austria has been a party to the Convention on the Reduction of Cases of Multiple Nationality; hence, Rottmann lost his initial Austrian nationality right the moment he acquired a German one. Nevertheless, he had omitted to indicate in the application that an Austrian court had conducted a criminal proceeding against him. As a result, the German authority decided to withdraw Rottmann’s German nationality retroactively, whereby he was also deprived of his status of a Union citizen. For a decision at issue, the relevant interpretive aspect was through the wording of the Declaration on nationality of a Member State, which says: ‘[T]he question whether an individual possesses the nationality of a Member State shall be settled solely by reference to the national law of the Member State concerned.’ 58 The national courts decided primarily on the deprivation of the nationality of a Member State; nonetheless, the question of Union citizenship appeared at stake also since if Rottmann had been deprived of the Member State’s nationality, he would have subsequently lost citizenship of the Union also. Ergo, the Court of Justice became involved through a preliminary ruling and could deliver judgement where it first assessed whether the situation at stake fell into the scope of Union law. Unlike the Advocate General, the Commission and intervening Member States, which found the loss of the Member State’s nationality completely falling out of the ambit of European Union law; 59 the Court took a stance opposite, arguing that 57 See Case C-135/08 Rottmann [2010] ECLI:EU:C:2010:104. 58 Treaty on European Union [1992] OJ C 191, Declaration on nationality of a Member State. 59 Case C-135/08 Rottmann [2010] ECLI:EU:C:2010:104, paragraph 37.

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