The aim of this article is to offer a fundamental rights
reading of Union citizenship at a time where individual life choices based on
the assumed certainty of Union citizenship and the right to free movement are
put in jeopardy. The withdrawal of a Member State from the EU serves as a prism
through which to revisit the conception of Union citizenship. The article
starts by providing a close analysis of the evolving case-law of the Court of
Justice of the European Union (the Court) on that citizenship. The article then
highlights the potential of a normative, fundamental rights approach to Union
citizenship that includes individuals in the EU legal order and protects them
against exclusion through the removal of that fundamental right. That allows a
coherent interpretation of the recent case-law on citizenship, the Charter of
Fundamental Rights of the EU and the general principles of Union law as derived
from constitutional traditions of the Member States and international law. If Union
citizenship is understood as such a fundamental rights-based concept, then the
intrinsic connection between being a Union citizen and a national of a Member
State of the Union competes with the protection of Union citizenship as a fundamental
right that is conferred on each individual. Union citizenship is not just an
objective status that states can confer and remove.