IL SINDACATO DELLA CORTE DI GIUSTIZIA IN MATERIA DI CITTADINANZA NAZIONALE

— In X v Udlændinge- og Integrationsministeriet (C-689/21), the Court of Justice ruled that EU law does not preclude, in principle, national legislation from providing that nationals of a Member State born outside its territory who, at the age of 22, have never been resident in that Member State and have not spent time there under circumstances proving a genuine link with that Member State lose, ex lege, the nationality of that State, provided that the relevant national rules comply with EU law. In this regard, after referring to the principle of proportionality, for the first time, the Court applied the principle of effectiveness and identified some procedural conditions which must be met by the relevant national practices. The paper frames this judgment within the case-law on the Member States’ obligations regarding the acquisition and loss of nationality in the light of EU law. Notably, the analysis aims to stress how the Court paved the way for the identification of further constraints to the Member States’ competence in the field both of the loss and the acquisition of nationality.