Article 39(2) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights provides:
‘Members of the European Parliament shall be elected by direct universal suffrage in a free and secret ballot.’
In its brief and rather low key judgment in Delvigne (Case C-650/13; ECLI:EU:C:2015:648), which was handed down on 6 October 2015, the Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice has put flesh on the bones of this provision.
In its 27 May 2015 Queen’s speech, the Conservative government announced that ‘early legislation will be introduced to provide for an in/out referendum’. The following day, it introduced the European Union Referendum Bill, which passed its third reading in the House of Commons on 7 September 2015 (by 316 votes to 53).
Motivated by the emergence of “home-grown” terrorism and the prospect that Australian citizens joining terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq may return to Australia, the Australian government (like many others) is seeking greater powers to revoke citizenship.
In 2014 Estonia launched an e-residence scheme through which non-resident foreigners could obtain an Estonian digital identity card. The digital card allows people to access a series of digital services such as enabling them to create and use electronic signatures, launch and manage companies, do online banking
The question of who votes in what elections is usually thought to be a rather nerdy and obscure question, and it doesn’t often capture the public imagination. So it was quite something to see an announcement from Number 10 in advance of the publication of the EU Referendum Bill telling us what the franchise is going to be in the referendum trending as ‘most popular’ and as a ‘top story’ on the BBC News website
The next day after acquiring Romanian citizenship, Irina Tarasiuc – a singer from the Republic of Moldova – wrote on the social network Facebook: “For me the Romanian passport only stands for a visa, and not for citizenship. It is just an instrument for being mobile. I am Moldovan.” Tarasiuc acquired Romanian citizenship through a facilitated
