Oleksandra Zmiyenko Saggi – DPCE online, 2020/4 ISSN: 2037-6677 5259 of securitization of migration, while the worldwide changes anticipate legislative developments. Against this backdrop, the phenomenon of statelessness, invisible as stateless persons in a citizen register, becomes more apparent. The legal vacuum, which represents the gravest violation of human right to a nationality, gradually emerges on the policy-making agenda. Considering the instances of unresolved endemic statelessness, the question is whether the European Union can address de jure statelessness in the context of forced migration, given the fact that this context retains a prominent place on the political scene. Acknowledging the methodological challenges of interdisciplinary research, this paper limits its scope to mainly legal analysis. Aiming to identify policy (in)coherence between the EU and its Member States and the policy gaps in addressing statelessness, the paper compares four legal systems: German, Italian, Hungarian and Polish. The data for the case studies is derived from the Statelessness Index3 – a comparative tool established and managed by the European Network on Statelessness. Notwithstanding uncertainty in governance raising from the complex issue of EU competence that is not explicitly listed in the ‘catalogue’ of the Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union4, up to the uncertainty of the status of the persons concerned with a great variability depending on the legal systems, there is a space to regulate. An analysis of the fragmentation of policies and actions across the EU Member States indicates possible field for supranational or intergovernmental action. The approximation of certain parts of the legislation, such as statelessness determination procedures, might be addressed at the EU level. In spite of an apparent lack of EU competences in the field of nationality, there are both international obligations and a legal basis which empowers the EU to take an active role in addressing statelessness. The UNHCR-defined framework includes 10 actions to end statelessness, however not all of them relate to statelessness in the context of forced migration. An overview of the selected EU Member States requires narrowing the actions described by UNHCR. The present paper thus structures the analysis around the policies related to the prevention of new cases of statelessness from emerging, and to the identification and protection of stateless persons. In these areas subjectmatter uncertainty may be resolved with tangible harmonised measures. Prior to analysing the cases of the selected Member States, the paper first describes the international legal framework and the EU’s place in it, including the judicial developments that limited an absolute state discretion in nationality matters. After reviewing the policies of the chosen countries related to statelessness prevention, and to statelessness determination procedures, the paper concludes on the necessity to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals’ (SDG) 3 Statelessness Index, available at https://index.statelessness.eu/, accessed on 7-7-2020. 4 See Consolidated versions of the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), art. 3-6.