Meijers Committee standing committee of experts on international immigration, refugee and criminal law of some countries.2 Populist parties have also expressed support for the denaturalisation and expulsion of dual nationals who have been convicted for criminal offenses.3 In 2019, it became known that the Dutch tax authorities had for years used dual nationality as a criterion for withdrawal of child benefits on the ground of suspected fraud or checked income tax returns of dual nationals more strictly than those of single Dutch nationals.4 Also, in the 2007 German Bill implementing the Family Reunification Directive 2003/86/EU it was suggested that the exemption of the income requirement in cases of reunification of spouses of German nationals should not always be applied in case of German dual nationals who could be expected to live with their spouse in the country of the other nationality.5 This suggestion was hardly compatible with the position of the Bundesverfassungsgericht that the additional citizenship may not result in a restriction of the legal effects of German citizenship, particularly their right to reside in Germany.6 A 2019 EU Regulation, establishing an EU wide digital database registering the criminal convictions of third-country nationals in a Member State (ECRIS-TCN), provides that the database shall include citizens of the Union who also hold the nationality of a third country.7 The dual Union citizens concerned are treated as third-country nationals and, hence, less favourably than single Union citizens. Where dual nationals are subject to differential treatment, there is a risk that their citizenship will become ‘second class’ or, in case of withdrawal of nationality, ‘conditional citizenship’.8 This policy brief aims to establish whether, and to what extent, dual nationals are protected against discrimination on the grounds of nationality and, indirectly, on the grounds of racial or ethnic origin. Paragraph 2 provides background information on the causes and occurrence of dual nationality in Europe. The case of citizenship deprivation of dual nationals convicted for or suspected of terrorist activities is then presented as an example to illustrate how distinctions between single and dual nationals affect citizens of immigrant origin and to explore the debates that have taken place in several states, especially with regard to the potentially discriminatory nature of such measures (paragraphs 3-5). Paragraph 6 analyses 2 E.g. The Netherlands, see Kamerstukken 35144 of 18 February 2019. In Tanase v. Moldova the ECtHR held a law preventing elected MPs with multiple nationalities from taking seats in Parliament to be disproportionate and in violation of Article 3 of Protocol No. 1, Grand Chamber judgment 27 April 2010, appl. no. 7/08. 3 See for example the 2017 election manifesto of the Dutch Freedom Party (PVV) (https://www.pvv.nl/visie.html) and the 2019 election manifesto of the Flemish party Vlaams Belang (https://www.vlaamsbelang.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/programma2019.pdf, p. 55). 4 Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens, Belastingdienst/Toeslagen, De verwerking van de nationaliteit van aanvragers van kinderopvangtoeslag, 17 July 2020. 5 “Dies kommt in besondere bei Doppelstaatlern in Bezug auf das Land in Betracht, dessen Staatsangehörigkeit sie neben der deutschen besitzen“, Bundestag Drücksache 16/5065, p. 171. For other restrictions in the same bill affecting especially German citizens on non-German descent, see A. Kiessling, ´Die Funktion der Staatsangehörigkeit als verlässliche Grundlage gleichberechtigter Zugehörigkeit´, Der Staat, 2015, p. 32. 6 BVerfG 4 September 2012, point 30, official translation: www.bverwg.de/040912U10C12.12.0 7 Article 2 of EU Regulation 2019/816; see Meijers Committee Notes CM1710, https://www.commissiemeijers.nl/sites/all/files/cm1710_note_on_ecris-tcn.pdf and CM1803, https://www.commissiemeijers.nl/sites/all/files/cm1803_letter_libe_1.pdf and J. Bast et al, Human Rights Challenges to European Migration Policy (REMAP study), published online October 2020, p. 108. 8 See Kiessling 2015, p. 12, 22 and 32-33. 2