More people than you might imagine can avail themselves of the rights of European Citizenship

I wrote this article in 2014. Despite temptations to bring it up to date, I leave it here as it was then written. It is even more poignant now that many of us are soon to have our cherished European Citizenship taken away.

Freedom of movement within the European Union, that David Cameron and his friends are challenging, is a fundamental right of a European citizen. Some 2 million UK citizens are currently using this right to live in other EU countries. There are, however, more people than you might imagine who, actually or potentially, are able to avail themselves of this right. This arises because of the quirks in the nationality laws of individual member states.

I was in Goa for of the feast of St Francis-Xavier last year. There was much talk in town - and articles in the local newspapers - about dual nationality, something Indian citizenship law does not (in a strict sense) permit, but which many in Goa seek. Until 1961, when India invaded and annexed it, Goa was part of Portugal. It was not a colony. Under the Portuguese Constitution then in effect, Goa - the Estado da India - was an integral part of Portugal. The people of Goa were as fully Portuguese nationals as the natives of Lisbon or Coimbra.

Portuguese nationality law allows persons connected with Goa before India's annexation to retain Portuguese citizenship and, since Portugal's nationality laws are based on jus sanguinis (the principle that nationality is determined on the basis of parental heritage), Portuguese nationality passes to the next generation and perhaps even to subsequent generations. Since Portuguese citizenship automatically confers European citizenship, you can see why the prospect of a Portuguese passport was so attractive to many of those I met in Goa. Not only Portugal but the entire European Union opens up and beckons.

Citizenship of the European Union came into being with the Maastricht Treaty of 1992. Under its terms citizens of member states are automatically citizens of the European Union and, as set out in the Maastricht and Amsterdam (1997) treaties, have the right to the freedom of movement throughout the EU (although certain exceptions have been made when a country accedes to the EU). This is no longer limited to the freedom to work in another country, the "freedom of movement of labour" (one of the European Union's four fundamental freedoms since the 1950s). An individual European citizen now has the right to go to another country of the European Union for any legal purpose and to be treated there in most respects as a citizen of that country - but not quite in all respects as the 11 November 2014 European Court of Justice ruling on a German "benefits tourism" case clarified. Still, according to the ECJ, "EU Citizenship is destined to be the fundamental status of nationals of the Member States."

Although the rights and obligations pertaining to European citizenship are defined by EU treaties and courts, who counts as a European citizen (by virtue of being a citizen of a member state) is determined by the national laws of the individual member states. And these, as you might suspect, vary from country to country. Descendants of the Portuguese citizens in Goa are not in a unique category. People from Macao (which became a Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China in 1999) and East Timor (invaded by Indonesia in 1975 and annexed in 1976 before becoming an independent country - Timor Leste - in 2002) are often also Portuguese and hence citizens of the European Union.

Some individuals with a connection to Portugal only as recent as the 16th century can also claim Portuguese nationality. On 12 April 2013, the Portuguese parliament passed an amendment to the country's nationality laws that allowed people to become citizens of Portugal if they belong to a Jewish Sephardic community with Portuguese origins. The big emigration of Sephardic Jews from Portugal was 500 years ago.

On 28 September, 2014, The Economist ran an article on travel documents. It began,  "In times of austerity, travel documents come cheap. Portugal is the latest of several European countries to start selling visas to foreign investors; others are slashing their prices. These schemes grant the right to live and travel within the European Union. A passport often follows a few years later." The Financial Times ran an article on Edmund Zhao on 8 October. Mr Zhao is one of an increasing number of Chinese who have moved to Portugal under the country's "Golden Visa" programme, through which a non-EU citizen can obtain a residency permit by investing €500,000 in Portuguese property. The website of "La Vida" (www.goldenvisas.com), a company that will assist in obtaining a "Golden Visa", is in English, Arabic and Chinese.

Although these examples are all from Portugal, Portugal is by no means unique in opening doors, through its nationality laws, to European citizenship and hence the right to live anywhere you might like to choose in the European Union.

If any one of your four grandparents was born in Ireland (north or south) you can probably claim Irish nationality. Italy also applies the principle of jus sanguinis to nationality. Subject to certain conditions, anyone with an ancestor who was an Italian citizen after 1861 (when Italy became a unified kingdom) can become an Italian national without generational limit. The Italians, like the Irish, are one of Europe's great emigrating nations as a visit to Melbourne, New York or Buenos Aires would readily confirm. From an informal (and admittedly very small-sample) poll I recently took in Buenos Aires, I would estimate that the majority of Argentineans descend from an individual who left Italy after 1861.

Under Hungarian nationality law, anyone with an ancestor (no generational limit) born in the Kingdom of Hungary can become a Hungarian citizen if they also speak Hungarian. The Kingdom of Hungary has a one-thousand-year history and before the Treaty of Trianon (1920) Hungary covered a vastly greater area than the truncated Republic of Hungary does today. The requirement to speak Hungarian may in practice be a bigger barrier; but non-Hungarian speaking individuals, with or without Hungarian ancestry, can qualify for a Hungarian residence permit by buying €250,000 worth of government bonds.

European Union countries other than Portugal also provide a route to citizenship through investment. Henley & Partners styles itself as "the global leaders in residence and citizenship planning". Its website has a page ("Citizenship-by-Investment in Cyprus" -  https://www.henleyglobal.com/citizenship-cyprus-citizenship/) providing advice on how to become a citizen of Cyprus and lists among the advantages of such citizenship "the right to live, work and study in the EU" and "when you acquire citizenship under the Cyprus citizenship program, you and your family enjoy full citizenship for life, which can be passed on to future generations by descent." The same firm will also provide advice on investing in Austria to become an Austrian (and hence European Union) citizen under Article 10 (6) of the Austrian Citizenship Act - see https://www.henleyglobal.com/citizenship-austria/. It will even advise on a route to UK Citizenship through a "Tier 1 Investor Visa" and "Indefinite Leave to Remain". But why bother with that when there are so many easier routes to EU citizenship?

Perhaps the last word should be left to the European Commission's own website: "Any person who holds the nationality of an EU country is automatically also an EU citizen. EU citizenship is additional to and does not replace national citizenship. It is for each EU country to lay down the conditions for the acquisition and loss of nationality of that country. Citizenship of the Union is conferred directly on every EU citizen by the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU."

Gordon McKechnie

11 November 2014