28 A. Brun if, as a Dane, I reside in France, I have to have the same rights as French nationals and this from the first day of my stay. Even outside the EU, any member state has to give me consular protection, under the same conditions as those applied to its nationals. And, if I receive the rights to vote in municipal and European elections, it is always under the same conditions as the nationals of the state where I reside. Being considered as if I were a national in my country of residence, where is the need for asking for the nationality of that country, as long as the EU respects diversity? One of my obligations as an EU citizen is to respect my host country and to participate fairly in its social and political life. But why should I ask for its nationality, if I still feel French, German or Polish? Of course, there is a well-known limited number of exceptions to this national treatment and some discriminations remain. The purpose of the ‘Let me vote’ initiative is to abolish one of them. It is ambitious in its scope, by covering all ‘political’ elections, regional, legislative, referenda, presidential, etc. Due to the diversity of elections in member states, it would of course not be possible to enter into a precise enumeration. I understand also that the initiative suggests giving the rights to all EU residents, not only to long-term or permanent ones. This is in line with existing rights to vote in municipal and European elections. Nevertheless, it can be useful to recall that the number of citizens concerned is rather limited. In official documents from the European Commission, the figure of 12 million people is frequently quoted to measure the total number of EU citizens residing in a member state other than their own. Granting the right to vote to EU citizens will therefore hardly modify the political landscape in any member state, while it will contribute to the respect of EU citizens’ fundamental rights, in particular the right to participate in regular elections in the country where they reside as laid down in Article 3 of the First Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights. It will also contribute to reducing the so-called ‘democratic deficit’ by fully guaranteeing their representation in EU legislation through the vote of their host country government in the Council and the position taken by national parliaments in EU procedures according to the rules laid down by the Treaty. Obviously, this representation is not guaranteed in the situation mentioned by Rainer Bauböck where EU citizens lose their voting rights in national elections in their countries of origin.