Our rights to EU citizenship are worth fighting for – despite Brexit | Hacker News Reader

Our rights to EU citizenship are worth fighting for – despite Brexit

theguardian.com

41 pointsmbethell48 comments

Would have liked to see a bit more nuance in the article. "European Union citizens have the right to free movement, settlement and employment across the EU."

I can understand exceptions being made for British citizens who have been living in the continent for many years. However, it hardly seems fair for all British citizens to be granted free employment/settlement rights in EU states, when other EU citizens aren't afforded the same rights in Britain.

As an EU citizen I would have no issue granting free movement to British Citizen even after Brexit. The British are valuable for Europe both economically and culturally and I don't see why a bunch of Xenophobes should be allowed to punish all Brits, including those who are curious and adventurous and wishes to live and work in other parts of Europe.

I used to think like you. But at the same time, we EU citizens also have to fight for things which are good to us, like the right to visit the UK. As the UK departs, they're making it us vs them. So if the EU has to make threats on derailing some of "them" lives to benefit some of "us", I'm for it.

The Brexiteers don't actually want to stop EU citizens visiting the UK, they want to stop them having the automatic right to settle and work in the UK and gain UK benefits. This is the crux of it.

I'm an anti-Bexit Brit and have benefited hugely from the right to work elsewhere in the EU and travel throughout the EU without a visa. Several of my employers probably would not have been based in London without that right, they'd have been based in Paris or Berlin. It's crazy to me that we're putting that in jeopardy.

However I don't think this will affect current EU citizen residents in the UK, or UK citizens currently resident in the EU. From what I've read, both the UK government and EU leaders are agreed that existing residents should have their current rights grandfathered in.

I wish you were right. However, read this comment elsewhere in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16492116

I can't speak for the accuracy of that comment though.

Its a two way street - UK must allow the same for EU citizens.

As an EU citizen, I would not accept granting free movement to British citizens unless I be granted free movement through the UK borders.

I do not want a one-way street where I am given the shorter stick.

It is not like the British citizens were a voiceless majority led by a xenophobic minority: they voted and the majority spoke.

Well, you as an individual would be given the shorter stick, I can see that. But I feel Europe as a whole would be richer for it, just as Britain have benefitted from immigration (despite their refusal to acknowledge this). In addition, as certain elements in Britain hijacks the process and tries to distance Britain more from the EU than even the Brexit vote mandates, showing the British people that we still consider them part of us, despite the shortcomings of their government would be better than play the eye for an eye game. In addition I feel it would facilitate Britain rejoining the EU which I hope happens sooner rather than later.

I can understand why you would not share this view though.

Immigration is an entirely different subject.

British citizens are very welcome to immigrate to the EU, and commit, and get citizenship.

I wouldn't call 37.4% of the electorate a majority.

That would never fly anyway. The EU insists on reciprocity — although negotiations can take time. For instance the US is the last non-reciprotal country on the visa-free list.

And EU citizens get their citizenship through the national one, cf Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union Article 20:

> Citizenship of the Union is hereby established. Every person holding the nationality of a Member State shall be a citizen of the Union. Citizenship of the Union shall be additional to and not replace national citizenship.

Of note, EU citizenship is a subset of national citizenship as countries get to decide who is or is not a "national" member.

This distinction is mostly visible for overseas territories e.g. Greenland and the Faroe Islands are both part of the Kingdom of Denmark but both outside the EU, yet Greenlanders are EU Citizens while Faroese are not.

100% on.

> I can understand exceptions being made for British citizens > who have been living in the continent for many years.

As far as I know this is a given already.

> However, it hardly seems fair for all British citizens to > be granted free employment/settlement rights in EU states, > when other EU citizens aren't afforded the same rights in > Britain.

This is also obvious.

I am not sure but the article may miss the point. Having a lock at Dutch citizenship: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_nationality_law#Dual_cit...

So if you are a UK national living in the Netherlands it will be tricky to have dual citizenship. So assuming that you keep your UK citizenship your residency rights will be "grandfathered". Now a problem arises after the Brexit if such a UK national with residency in the Netherlands wants to retire in Spain - a place where he/she holds no residency rights.

You are obviously right.

But it has to be mentioned that some times courts rule in ways different than what is fair. In law some times you have two things which you want to hold true simultaneously, something along the lines of 1) people have the right to move freely between member states, and 2) people should have the right to expectation that their lives won't be derailed by high-level disagreements between states. Some times these truths (which are most often aligned), contradict each other in some edge case scenario (like brexit). Solving this usually means that a court will decide that one truth is more important than the other, and predicting these outcomes seems almost impossible to me as a non-law person.

So while I completely agree with you, to me it's far from obvious what the outcome here will be.

If British citizens have been living in EU countries for many years, in most cases I believe they're eligible to apply as citizens of those EU countries. In certain cases (such as in the OP article), the Netherlands often requires one to renounce[1] current nationalities after qualifying for naturalization[2].

As a counterexample, France[3] and Germany[4] tend to allow citizenship via naturalization after 5-8 years and do not require one to give up other nationalities. There's also the (mostly implemented?[5]) EU blue card program[6] that UK citizens could apply to obtain permanent residence in EU countries.

[1] https://ind.nl/en/Pages/Renouncing-your-current-nationality....

[2] https://ind.nl/en/dutch-citizenship/Pages/Naturalisation.asp...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_nationality_law#French_...

[4] https://www.bmi.bund.de/SharedDocs/faqs/EN/themen/migration/...

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Card_(European_Union)#Imp...

[6] http://www.eu-bluecard.com/

They should get naturalised then.

I have met a lot of these British expats, both in the Netherlands and elsewhere. They do not want to get naturalised, even though they are long term residents of their host country. I don't know why, but probably something to do with tax reasons. Anyway, they do not want to get naturalised, yet they want to gain all the rights of citizenship.

And actually this has nothing to do with the EU. These complaints from these people were present before Brexit was a thing. Freedom of movement is the least of their demands. They want the right to vote and the full package.

"X should just get naturalised" is an argument that makes my blood boil though. Becoming a citizen is an extremely difficult bureaucratic process that can often fail or be delayed due to no fault of your own.

Case in point: I've lived in UK for 8 years now, fully legally as an EU citizen. On paper, I should be able to apply for British citizenship tomorrow and get it without any issues. But I can't, because the Home Office completely disregards EU directive on the freedom of movement and the right to settlement - and yes, I have spoken to many immigration lawyers in the UK about it and they all say that Home Office is breaking the law in this specific case. There even is a case going on against the Home Office in the ECJ - but in the meantime, the reality of the situation is that I can't get a citizenship despite calling this country my home, paying all my taxes and being a law-abiding citizen with 8 years of residence here under my belt. Does that mean that my rights should not be protected, just because I don't have a British passport in my pocket?

I'm sure it works exactly the same way in reverse - there are British people who lived in Netherlands, Spain or elesewhere in EU for years, but for many many different reasons they can't become naturalized, because rules are what they are. Doesn't mean we should be suddenly stripping them of the rights they have been able to have for decades. Telling people to "just get naturalised" is not the solution.

'...there are British people who lived in Netherlands, Spain or elsewhere in EU for years, but for many many different reasons they can't become naturalized'

Because a lot of countries do not allow dual-citizenship and, broad generalisation accepted, people don't want to give up their UK status.

But, as you say, there are lots of good reasons not to. Better is to keep one's British passport and use it to live wherever one pleases.

And, of course, to not vote away the right to do so. Shame so many people did that.

> But, as you say, there are lots of good reasons not to.

Surprisingly enough, you can't usually have your cake and eat it too.

But we can, currently. That's the current state of affairs.

It'll change soon, at the British public's request. But it was a really good thing while it lasted.

> European citizenship confers a number of privileges: the right to live in and move freely between member states, the right to diplomatic and consular assistance from other member states, and the right to participate in elections to the European parliament. The shared assumption of the European Union and the UK government is that Brexit will mean British citizens will automatically forfeit these rights.

I'm having a hard time imagining how it could be otherwise. The EU and the UK could certainly come to terms on some of these issues but I seriously doubt that UK citizens will be allowed move freely between member states if the converse is not allowed as well (i.e. EU citizens entering and leaving freely the UK). I seriously doubt that UK citizens will be represented in the European parliament.

> I'm having a hard time imagining how it could be otherwise.

A Northern Ireland (GFA) like scenario, where current UK citizens can choose whether they consider themselves British, European, or both. I don't think this would be possible without allowing citizens of other EU nations to continue enjoying freedom of movement into the UK (as Irish citizens are allowed to live and work in the UK, and UK citizens can live and work in Ireland, independent of EU freedom of movement: http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/moving_country/moving_t...).

The benefits of being an EU member are primarily given to the citizens (free movement, ability to work). The costs to be a member are paid, effectively, by the state (migrants moving in, adherence to EU laws, etc). This is a very hand-wavey generalization, I agree, but let's consider it kind of true for a moment here.

If states can leave the EU, and stop paying the costs while maintaining the benefits to their citizens, what democracy would ever vote to stay?

In short, if this trial is to find that the British can all retain their EU status, regardless of whether the law is correct on doing so, it would mark the end of the European Union in very short order.

I'm not sure I understand your logic. Each country has its own rules on who it gives citizenship. The UK has these rules too, and many Europeans have obtained citizenship in the UK. It's natural that British citizens can obtain citizenship in states whose rules will give it to them. What am I missing?

That the article is not about getting citizenship to a member state in order to keep EU citizenship, but in gaining EU citizenship independently from citizenship from a member state.

Actually if you read closely it's not about gaining EU citizenship, it's about not losing it if you're British.

There's only two lines in that article that refer to what this people are actually fighting for:

> The shared assumption of the European Union and the UK government is that Brexit will mean British citizens will automatically forfeit these rights. But this is being tested in a case brought by a group of UK nationals living in Amsterdam

> “there is reason to doubt the correctness of the interpretation of article 20 that the loss of the status of citizen of an EU member state leads to loss of EU citizenship as well”

> Actually if you read closely it's not about gaining EU citizenship, it's about not losing it if you're British.

The operative word is independently. The article is about gaining EU citizenship independently from being a member national, whereas Article 20 is worded such that citizenship is accessed through member nationality.

So yes, the article is about gaining EU citizenship.

The word "independently" doesn't even appear in this article. Calling it an operative word is just talking out of your ass.

So no, it's not.

> In short, if this trial is to find that the British can all retain their EU status, regardless of whether the law is correct on doing so, it would mark the end of the European Union in very short order.

The idea is to find out if EU citizenship is independent of national citizenship.

I don't think this would lead to the end of the EU, because if all the member states decide to leave the EU, and all their citizens decide they want to keep EU citizenship anyhow, have they not just demonstrated that the EU is then the democratic state with sovereignty over that territory?

Right, but this is hacker news so think like a hacker.

I'll have my state join, get all my citizen EU citizenship, then leave the EU. Now I don't have to allow free movement of EU citizens in my country, but so my people can have free movement in EU member states.

My point was that, if, after your country leaves the EU, all your citizens opt to keep EU citizenship, then (through self-determination) they have given the EU a claim to continued sovereignty over your territory.

I'm a Dutchie and I feel for my friends in the UK. Brexit will only hurt the UK. My fear however is that we're too easy on the UK when they leave and this makes other countries also want to leave. So I feel that as an EU citizen it is in my best interests to make it as painful as possible for Brexit. I don't feel any consessions are owed to Britain, and specifically I want to discourage other nations from leaving. Entering and leaving the EU isn't something that countries should get to do every couple decades or so.

Not to say that Brexit needs to be especially painful for the British just for the sake of being painful. Just that they shouldn't get any special breaks. Either Britain is part of the EU or it isn't. None of this, half in, half out nonsense.

Exactly this.

You don't need to worry about being too soft on the UK, we seem to be driving ourselves off a cliff at the moment. If anything the EU is probably more worried about having a basket case on its doorstep.

I'm sorry. It's not fair to the sane people in the UK that this Brexit nonsense is happening.

I don't think the EU are being easy on the UK. The UK press certainly does not feel the EU is being easy :D.

The EU are being very clear what their negotiation stance is and they are not really budging.

For most people, the fact that the UK have shot themselves massively in the foot, and are aiming for the other foot as well, is obvious, and if you look at the polls, appetitest for leaving the EU in other memberstates have dropped significantly after the vote.

I agree with what you say. But the negotiations have barely even begun so we'll just have to see how things work out.

'..it is in my best interests to make it as painful as possible for Brexit.'

Thanks for that.

How about you go tell "thank for that" to the chavs who voted for brexit? Isn't them you should be angry at for doing something stupid? What we are doing is completely rational.

I don't think dazc was being snarky with his comment. I took it genuinely as thanks. Perhaps I'm being naive ;)

And if other countries want to leave the EU... why shouldn't they?

What sort of association is the EU if it has to use coercion and punishment to keep itself together?

That is a very weak argument, what sort of association would give the same benefits to non members as members?

The central question is whether EU citizenship is a relationship between individuals and the EU, or whether it is simply an artefact of the treaties between the EU states.

If the former, then the action of a member state deciding to leave the EU could not remove EU citizenship from individuals, any more than one someone holding joint French and British citizenship could have their lawful French citizenship voided against their will by an action of Britain.

If the latter, then EU citizenship is not really a separate concept per se, but merely a term to describe an individual who has national citizenship of an EU state at a particular moment in time. Their individual rights exist through a layer of indirection: individuals derive their EU rights from their national citizenship only.

I believe the latter is closer to how it works in practice, however I can definitely see how such an interpretation could sit uncomfortably with the EU -- if there is no legal relationship between individual EU citizens and the EU, then one could start to doubt whether the EU itself is an entity per se, or if it is just a convenient term we use for the collective effects of the treaties between member states.

> I believe the latter is closer to how it works in practice

AFAIK people who lose citizenships to EU members also lose EU citizenship, so yes. It's also very much the wording of Article 20:

> Citizenship of the Union is hereby established. Every person holding the nationality of a Member State shall be a citizen of the Union.

EU citizenship is not independent from nationality of a member state.

> Their individual rights exist through a layer of indirection: individuals derive their EU rights from their national citizenship only.

> I can definitely see how such an interpretation could sit uncomfortably with the EU -- if there is no legal relationship between individual EU citizens and the EU

I fail to see why such an interpretation would sit uncomfortably with the EU, it's pretty much how everything is worded.

> then one could start to doubt whether the EU itself is an entity per se

That makes no sense at all. The WTO is a thing regardless of my personal relationship to it. So is the Coast Guard, or IG Metall.

Does this work both ways? So that if British citizens has the right to live in EU, then EU citizens also have the same EU citizenship right to live in Britain?

EU would benefit most if it cooperates with Britain.

According to Prisoners dilemma which is a theoretical game theory construct both EU and Britain will benefit the most from cooperation. Otherwise both EU and Britain will loose. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma

'Does this work both ways?'

It does at the moment. But, as per current plans, people from the EU who arrive after a certain date will not have this right.

The date has not been decided, nor have the rights of UK citizens who currently reside in other member states.

> EU would benefit most if it cooperates with Britain.

It seems in your mind "prisioner's dilemma" means "one side does whatever it wants, the other benefits by cooperating".

A lot has been said about game theory being used to justify anything and everything, but this has to be some sort of record.

Whenever people speak of birthrights, I get nervous.

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