EU citizenship: Still a Fundamental Status? 11 Finally, the mantra of EU citizenship’s fundamental importance for nationals of the member states has also been invoked in order to justify restrictions on national rules on the assignation or recognition of names,19 in the context of civil status laws,20 and certain national rules restricting the right to vote in European Parliament elections.21 These cases buttress the argument that EU citizenship is emerging as an autonomous constitutional status for nationals of the member states. In a small number of instances, the CJEU has defended a territorial principle in relation to the enjoyment of EU citizenship, finding in a series of cases from Ruiz Zambrano22 onwards that where a minor EU citizen would be forced to leave the territory of the Union if one or more of his or her third country national parents with direct caring responsibilities were to be deported from a member state (thus depriving the EU citizen of the enjoyment of his or her citizenship rights), then the parent(s) will enjoy derived rights of residence stemming from Articles 20 and 21 TFEU. Here, the constitutional effects of EU law are largely felt in the sphere of national immigration law, restricting decision-making in respect of third country nationals by reference to the status of the EU citizen dependent child.23 The possibility of protection for third country nationals stems in this case from the effects of citizenship laws conferring nationality at birth. The principle can apply even if only one of the parents is a third country national. The key question is whether the EU citizen child has a primary relationship of care with the parent at threat of losing their residence. Acquisition of a new EU nationality after birth (e.g. through naturalisation) has also become an issue, provided that the person naturalising still retains her or his original (EU) nationality. The CJEU concluded in the 2017 Lounes case24 that an EU citizen who has made use of her free movement rights and naturalises on the basis of residence and integration within the 19 20 21 22 23 24 Case C-148/02 Garcia Avello ECLI:EU:C:2003:539. See Pataut, E. (2016), ‘A Family Status for the European Citizen?’, in Azoulai, L. et al. (eds.), Constructing the Person in EU Law Rights, Roles, Identities, 311–322. Oxford: Hart Publishing. Case C-650/13 Delvigne ECLI:EU:C:2015:648. Case C-34/09 ECLI:EU:C:2011:124. For a recent analysis, see Peers, S. (2017), ‘Think of the children: the ECJ clarifies the status of non-EU parents of EU citizen children living in their own Member State’, EU Law Analysis Blog, 10 May 2017, available at http:// eulawanalysis.blogspot.com/2017/05/think-of-children-ecj-clarifies-status. html. Case C-165/16 ECLI:EU:C:2017:862.