UK Citizens as Former EU Citizens: Predicament and Remedies 155 In contradistinction, their right to ‘participate in the democratic life of the Union’ (Article 10(3) of the Treaty on European Union13) is inevitably going to be affected, as the UK will no longer send MEPs to the European Parliament whom they could elect. Nevertheless, citizens of the EU-27 need not thereby fully lose their right to vote for MEPs. A 2015 European Parliament report14 notes that 22 Member States of the EU-27 allow their citizens to vote for the European Parliament when they reside in a non-EU state. There are sound reasons for the EU institutions to pressure the remaining five to change their policy, especially in light of the Court of Justice’s Zambrano15 ratio that Member States should not hinder [43] ‘the genuine enjoyment of the substance of rights conferred by virtue of their status as citizens of the Union’. Moreover, it is not implausible that the Court of Justice’s Delvigne16 ratio (concerning disenfranchisement of prisoners, discussed here17) will prompt a legal challenge to disenfranchisement of Union citizens residing in non-EU Member States. In addition to the legal framework, it is submitted that the policy reasons for enfranchisement apply a fortiori when Member State citizens reside in a former EU Member State. UK citizens as former EU citizens Under the current treaty arrangements, all UK citizens who do not hold the citizenship of another EU Member State will cease to be citizens of the Union, whether or not they have exercised their EU mobility rights: citizenship of an EU Member State is a necessary and sufficient condition for Union citizenship (Article 9 TEU)18. 13 14 15 16 17 18 http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/ TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A12012M%2FTXT Poptcheva, E. M. (2015), Disenfranchisement of EU Citizens resident abroad. Situation in national and European elections in EU Member States, available at http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/IDAN/2015/564379/ EPRS_IDA(2015)564379_EN.pdf Judgment of the Court (Grand Chamber) of 8 March 2011, available at http:// eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A62009CJ0034. ECLI:EU:C:2015:648, available at http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/ document.jsf?text=&docid=169189&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN&mode=req& dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=115706. Ziegler, R. (2016), ‘The “Brexit” Referendum: We Need to Talk about the (General Election) Franchise’, Verfassungsblog On Matters Constitutional, available at https://verfassungsblog.de/ the-brexit-referendum-we-need-to-talk-about-the-general-election-franchise/. http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A12012M%2F TXT.