Sharpston, Eleanor --- "Citizenship of the Union" [2008] ELECD 230; in Moser, Philip; Sawyer, Katrine (eds), "Making Community Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2008)

Book Title: Making Community Law

Editor(s): Moser, Philip; Sawyer, Katrine

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847201379

Section: Chapter 7

Section Title: Citizenship of the Union

Author(s): Sharpston, Eleanor

Number of pages: 17

Extract:

7. Citizenship of the Union
Eleanor Sharpston1
It was, of course, Advocate General Jacobs in Case C-168/91 Konstantinidis
[1993] EUECJ C-168/91; [1993] ECR I-1191 who first coined the phrase, `civis Europeus', when he
declared:

A Community national who goes to another Member State . . . is entitled not just to
pursue his trade or profession and to enjoy the same living and working conditions
as nationals of the host state: he is in addition entitled to assume that . . . he will be
treated in accordance with a common code of fundamental values, in particular
those laid down in the European Convention on Human Rights. In other words, he
is entitled to say, `civis Europeus sum' and to invoke that status in order to oppose
any violation of his fundamental rights.2

Advocate General Jacobs, a civilized and well-read man, possibly had
somewhere in mind the passage from Acts 22:25­30 where St Paul, about to
have something nasty (like a flogging) happen to him in Jerusalem, pointed
out that he was a Roman citizen; and was immediately set free. I add, in paren-
theses, that that particular episode did not, in the end, turn out to St Paul's
advantage;3 and that it shows that the exercise of citizenship rights is not
always necessarily crowned with success.
Curiously, for so prolific and wide-ranging an Advocate General, Francis
has given relatively few opinions in this area of EC law. Others ­ most notably
Advocate General Geelhoed4 ­ have drawn upon themselves the ...