Keywords
Summary

Keywords

1. Citizenship of the European Union — Treaty provisions — Scope ratione personae — National of one Member State lawfully residing on the territory of another Member State — Whether included — Effect — Benefit of rights attaching to the status of citizen of the Union — Persons concerned also nationals of the State of residence — Not relevant — Discrimination on grounds of nationality in regard to the rules governing the surname — Not permissible — (Arts 12 EC, 17 EC and 18 EC)

2. Community law — Principles — Equal treatment — Discrimination on grounds of nationality — Minor children resident in a Member State and having dual nationality of that State and of another Member State — Application for a change of surname to enable those minor children to bear the surname to which they are entitled in the second Member State — Refusal of the administrative authority to grant that application — Not permissible — (Arts 12 EC and 17 EC)

Summary

1. Nationals of one Member State who are lawfully resident in the territory of another Member State may rely on the right set out in Article 12 EC not to suffer discrimination on grounds of nationality in regard to the rules governing their surname.

Citizenship of the Union is destined to be the fundamental status of nationals of the Member States, enabling those nationals who find themselves in the same situation to enjoy, within the scope ratione materiae of the EC Treaty, the same treatment in law irrespective of their nationality, subject to such exceptions as are expressly provided for. The situations falling within the scope ratione materiae of Community law include those involving the exercise of the fundamental freedoms guaranteed by the Treaty, in particular those involving the freedom to move and reside within the territory of the Member States, as conferred by Article 18 EC.

Although, as Community law stands at present, the rules governing a person's surname are matters coming within the competence of the Member States, the latter must none the less, when exercising that competence, comply with Community law, in particular with the Treaty provisions on the freedom of every citizen of the Union to move and reside in the territory of the Member States. Citizenship of the Union, established by Article 17 EC, is not, however, intended to extend the scope ratione materiae of the Treaty also to internal situations which have no link with Community law. Such a link with Community law does, however, exist in regard to persons in a situation such as that of a national of one Member State who is lawfully resident in the territory of another Member State. That conclusion cannot be invalidated by the fact that the persons concerned also have the nationality of the Member State in which they have been resident since their birth and which, according to the authorities of that State, is by virtue of that fact the only nationality recognised by the latter. It is not permissible for a Member State to restrict the effects of the grant of the nationality of another Member State by imposing an additional condition for recognition of that nationality with a view to the exercise of the fundamental freedoms provided for in the Treaty.

see paras 22-29

2. Articles 12 EC and 17 EC must be construed as precluding the administrative authority of a Member State from refusing to grant an application for a change of surname made on behalf of minor children resident in that State and having dual nationality of that State and of another Member State, in the case where the purpose of that application is to enable those children to bear the surname to which they are entitled according to the law and tradition of the second Member State.

First, with regard to the principle of the immutability of surnames as a means designed to prevent risks of confusion as to identity or parentage of persons, although that principle undoubtedly helps to facilitate recognition of the identity of persons and their parentage, it is still not indispensable to the point that it could not adapt itself to a practice of allowing children who are nationals of one Member State and who also hold the nationality of another Member State to take a surname which is composed of elements other than those provided for by the law of the first Member State and which has, moreover, been entered in an official register of the second Member State. Furthermore, by reason in particular of the scale of migration within the Union, different national systems for the attribution of surnames coexist in the same Member State, with the result that parentage cannot necessarily be assessed within the social life of a Member State solely on the basis of the criterion of the system applicable to nationals of that latter State. In addition, far from creating confusion as to the parentage of the children, a system allowing elements of the surnames of the two parents to be handed down may, on the contrary, contribute to reinforcing recognition of that connection with the two parents.

Second, with regard to the objective of integration pursued by the practice in issue, the practice in issue is, in view of the coexistence in the Member States of different systems for the attribution of surnames applicable to those there resident, neither necessary nor even appropriate for promoting the integration of the nationals of other Member States within their State of residence.

see paras 42-43, 45, operative part