EU citizenship: Still a Fundamental Status? 13 under the European Convention on Human Rights26 or perhaps – where EU immigration law applies in the EU27 – protection under Directive 2003/109, which harmonises rights of long term resident third country nationals.27 It is unsurprising that the EU has made the situation of these groups of EU citizens, who have previously relied upon their free movement rights, a priority within the Article 50 negotiations, and it can broadly be assumed that if there is an Article 50 withdrawal agreement then most of their rights will be protected under its provisions. This will not be just like benefiting from EU citizenship, but such a legal measure will surely, wherever it applies, institute a new category of relatively privileged alien, although there are bound to be plenty of cases of uncertainty that will generate litigation that will end up before the CJEU, or some specially constituted judicial institution. This outcome marks the resurgence of the fundamentals of national immigration law over the postnational promise of EU citizenship, and the same could be said of the alternative, which is that the former beneficiaries of EU citizenship rights should seek naturalisation in the host state. According to Dora Kostakopoulou, this would ‘lead to the absorption of the status of EU citizenship by national citizenship.’28 In any event, as is well known, naturalisation will not provide the answer in all cases, because of uneven member state policies on dual citizenship, not to mention other issues such as naturalisation tests and costs. That has not stopped many UK citizens (whether static or mobile) from exploring how they might access a member state nationality that would preserve their EU citizenship rights, or indeed many EU27 citizens from naturalising in the UK. Gareth Davies has argued that Lounes was decided by the CJEU with one eye on Brexit, but he is hardly complimentary about the nature of the CJEU’s reasoning.29 But exploration of citizenship options represents just one of the many ways in which individuals are reacting to the difficult choices that Brexit is forcing on them. Other pathways followed by those objecting on either personal or political grounds to the UK leaving the EU (and the circumstances in which it is doing 26 27 28 29 Kuric and Others v Slovenia, No 26828/06, [2013] 56 EHRR 20. Directive 2003/109 on the status of third country nationals who are long term residents OJ 2003 L16/44. See Kostakopoulou above n.6, 7. Davies, G. (2018), ‘The State of Play on Citizens’ Rights and Brexit’, European Law Blog, 6 February 2018, http://europeanlawblog.eu/2018/02/06/ the-state-of-play-on-citizens-rights-and-brexit/ and Davies, G. (2018), ‘Lounes, Naturalisation and Brexit’, European Law Blog, 5 March 2018, available at http://europeanlawblog.eu/2018/03/05/lounes-naturalisation-and-brexit/.