298 VONK ET AL. 3 Comparative Findings on Protection against Statelessness in Europe As said, the purpose of the EUDO-UNHCR collaboration was, first, to analyse the citizenship legislation of 36 European countries against the backdrop of the special problems raised by statelessness; and second to assess whether the countries provide sufficient protection against statelessness, in light of the most important international standards. It is important to note that this assessment is made for each country irrespective of whether the country is party to the relevant international instrument. To start with the final conclusion, our cross-country comparison shows that most countries seriously try to avoid cases of statelessness from arising and act in accordance with the international standards. Considerable progress has thus been made from a situation of only a few decades ago, when gender-based discrimination in nationality laws and lack of political priority for the issue of statelessness still left at-risk individuals, such as children born abroad, out of wedlock and/or of mixed nationality parentage, in a much more vulnerable situation.9 The database nonetheless identifies a number of violations of international norms relating to statelessness, although we observe that these violations are often caused by the fact that international obligations are not interpreted carefully enough by states in their citizenship laws. In the ensuing pages we will, based on the summary assessment of relevant nationality law provisions as outlined in Table 2, assess the practices of 36 European countries in providing protection against statelessness. Table 2 Assessment of National Law in Light of International Standards Number of modes which fall in the following assessment categories: More protection In line with than required standards by standards Montenegro Serbia Moldova Slovakia 9 2 2 1 0 13 13 14 15 No safeguard Limited safeguard against against statelessness statelessness 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 See e.g. P Weis, Nationality and Statelessness in International Law (2nd revised edn, Sijthoff & Noordhoff 1979). tilburg law review 19 (2014) 294-302