EU citizenship under threat

15.4.2016

Question for written answer E-003062-16
to the Commission
Rule 130
Pál Csáky (PPE)

On 26 May 2010 the National Council of the Slovak Republic amended law No Tt. 40/1993 on citizenship of the Slovak Republic. As a result of this amendment, people who choose voluntarily to take up citizenship of another country will lose ex-lege their Slovak citizenship. The law states that anyone who takes up foreign citizenship must declare this to the authorities.

The declaration procedure is problematic, as the authorities withdraw Slovak citizenship on the basis of all such declarations, even if the subject of the declaration has not been satisfactorily identified and/or no proof has been provided of their having taken up foreign citizenship. The Slovak authorities' procedure can therefore not filter out: 1. (false) declarations made using other people's identities; 2. (erroneous) declarations based on the erroneous assumption that foreign citizenship has been obtained. In certain cases the withdrawal of Slovak citizenship subsequent to such declarations can lead to people becoming stateless or the situation whereby individuals were no longer citizens of a Member State, which would, under Article 20 TFEU, also mean the loss of their EU citizenship.

Since EU citizenship is conditional on citizenship of a Member State, the Slovak procedure in question is jeopardising, on an unacceptable scale, the safeguarding of legal status, which is a fundamental right, in the form of EU citizenship.

Is the procedure described above compatible with EC law?

In the Commission's opinion, should the situations described above be able to curtail the enjoyment of the rights conferred by EU citizenship?