18
By judgment of 23 January 2018, the Verwaltungsgericht Wien (Administrative Court, Vienna,
Austria) dismissed the action brought by JY against that decision. After pointing out that assurance as
to the grant of Austrian nationality may also be revoked, in accordance with Paragraph 20(2) of the
StbG, where, as in the present case, a ground for refusal arises after providing proof that the former
citizenship has been relinquished, that court pointed out that the two serious administrative offences
committed by JY were likely, for the first one, to jeopardise road safety and, for the second, specifically
to jeopardise the safety of other road users. Thus, according to that court, on account of those two
serious administrative offences, taken together with the eight administrative offences committed
between 2007 and 2013, it was no longer possible to give a favourable prognosis concerning JY for the
future, for the purposes of point 6 of Paragraph 10(1) of that law. JY’s long period of residence in
Austria and her professional and personal integration in that Member State do not affect that
conclusion.
19
Furthermore, the Verwaltungsgericht Wien (Administrative Court, Vienna) considered that, in view of
the existence of those offences, the decision at issue in the main proceedings was proportionate in the
light of the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. That court also held that the case at issue in
the main proceedings did not fall within EU law.
20
JY lodged an appeal on a point of law (Revision) against that judgment before the
Verwaltungsgerichtshof (Supreme Administrative Court, Austria).
21
That court explains that Austrian law on citizenship is based, inter alia, on the premiss that multiple
nationalities should be avoided wherever possible. Moreover, in order to prevent statelessness, various
foreign legal systems do not allow citizenship to be relinquished first. However, that does not mean that
the other (in this case Austrian) citizenship must be acquired beforehand; assurance that that other
nationality will be granted may suffice.
22
The referring court states that the assurance referred to in Paragraph 20(1) of the StbG establishes a
right to the grant of nationality that is conditional solely upon proof that foreign citizenship has been
relinquished. However, under Paragraph 20(2) of that law, that assurance must be revoked if the foreign
national no longer fulfils one of the requirements for that grant.
23
In the present case, in view of the administrative offences committed by JY before and after she was
given assurance as to the grant of Austrian nationality, the referring court points out that, under
Austrian law, the conditions for revocation of that assurance were fulfilled, within the meaning of
Paragraph 20(2) of the StbG, since the person concerned no longer satisfied one of the requirements for
the grant of Austrian nationality, namely that referred to in point 6 of Paragraph 10(1) of that law.
24
However, the question arises as to whether JY’s situation, by reason of its nature and its consequences,
falls within EU law and whether, in order to adopt the decision at issue in the main proceedings, the
competent administrative authority was required to have due regard to EU law, in particular the
principle of proportionality enshrined in EU law.
25
In that regard, the referring court, like the Verwaltungsgericht Wien (Administrative Court, Vienna),
takes the view that such a situation does not fall within EU law.
26
On the date on which the revocation decision at issue in the main proceedings was adopted, that date
being decisive for the purpose of examining the merits of the judgment of the Verwaltungsgericht Wien
(Administrative Court, Vienna), JY no longer had the status of citizen of the Union. Consequently,
unlike the situations that gave rise to the judgments of 2 March 2010, Rottmann (C‑135/08,
EU:C:2010:104), and of 12 March 2019, Tjebbes and Others (C‑221/17, EU:C:2019:189), the loss of
citizenship of the Union was not the corollary of that decision. On the contrary, as a result of the
revocation of the assurance as to the grant of Austrian nationality, combined with the refusal of her
application to be granted that nationality, JY lost the right, a right acquired on a conditional basis, to
obtain citizenship of the Union again, a citizenship which she had previously given up herself.
27
However, if a situation such as that of JY falls within EU law, the referring court asks whether the
competent national authorities and courts must ascertain, in accordance with the Court’s case-law,
whether the revocation of the assurance as to the grant of the nationality concerned, which prevents