ABSTRACT

Ilaria Ricci compares two similar cases where Member State decisions regarding the right to vote and stand as a candidate in elections to the European Parliament in Gibraltar and the Dutch Caribbean island of Aruba have been taken to the European Court of Justice. Despite the Charter which confirms that political rights under the European Union law are granted based on residence criteria, the two paradigmatic cases Ricci analyses suggest that European citizenship could be dependent on national citizenship and the question of who is to be considered a citizen could be answered differently from one Member State to another. Political citizenship, therefore, could be perceived as a composite concept.