It appears that citizenship of the European Union cannot be renounced by any individual, Andrew Brons MEP has pointed out.
Speaking during a debate in the EU’s foreign affairs committee meeting (AFCO) held yesterday on a proposal to make 2013 the official European Year of Citizens, Mr Brons said that EU citizenship “is quite unlike the citizenship of states that admit to being states (the EU pretends not to be one), in that it is acquired by the route of being a citizen of a member state.
“It is problematic in that it might produce conflicting loyalties, especially for a British Citizen who has acquired additional loyalties such as those of a Privy Councillor or those of a monarch of one of the eight member states that are constitutional monarchies,” he continued.
“Our Queen, apart from her part-time job as Queen Elizabeth II is also apparently a European Union citizen.
“EU citizenship is usually presented as though it were an unmitigated blessing, with rights and freedoms galore, but the duties of which are unstated.
“When I first heard that 2013 was to be the Year of the Citizen, my heart leapt—yes, I know that you find that hard to believe—because I thought that the English legal principle, The Expression of One Thing Implies the Exclusion of Another might apply to it, so that if 2013 were to be the Year of the Citizen, the years 2014, 2015 and so on might not be. I am afraid that I was too optimistic.
“One feature of particular citizenships is the procedure by which citizenship might be lost or renounced deliberate,” Mr Brons said.
“It would appear that EU citizenship is based on a contracting-out system, similar to the one that applies to trade union contributions to political parties in Britain. You pay unless you complete a form saying that you do not want to do so.
“However, in that case, there is at least a form that you can complete to avoid paying. However, there does not appear to be a form to complete to renounce EU citizenship.
“I am sure that millions of British people and the citizens* and nationals* of other member states, would queue up to renounce their European Union citizenship. However, I suspect that the form remains unpublished or is in the bottom drawer of a filing cabinet in the basement of the Commission,” Mr Brons concluded.
*There is a difference. Nationality is acquired by descent, whereas citizenship is acquired by accident of birth or legal contrivance.
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I do not consider myself a “citizen of Europe”, and I never will. With a personal awareness of the history of the last 1500 years or so, I shall go to my grave regarding Europe in general as my hereditary and personal enemy, and many European countries as remaining actual living embodiments of this enmity. Every measure taken by the European Union serves only to further demolish the ancestral freedoms of self-rule by democratic self-government which my forefathers fought and died for in countless wars caused by Europe and its countries over hundred of past generations. Forgive and forget? I’d rather spit on Europe’s grave!
We are being bureaucratically conqEUred.
I assume by his xenophobic rhetoric that Peter Mills is a UKIP supporter. Nationalists of today rightly reject the socialist, bureaucratic dictatorship of the EU, but have the savvy
to realise that without co-operation of fellow nationalists throughout Europe there is no future for the white people of the kindred tribes who have made European civilisation and its culture. Your alleged awareness of the history of the last 1500 years should have told you of this kinship. If it is beyond you, then try looking at the DNA evidence which proves it.
I was old enough to remember being bombed out and just old enough to have been accepted as a navigator for RAF Volunteer Reserve in the last few months of the war.
I would do it again, as Hitler wwas mainly responsible for that conflict. but would certainly not be so arrogant as to say that the countless wars over hundreds of past generations were all caused by Europe. Nor would I defile the memory of the millions who died in the last two ‘brothers wars’ by saying I would “spit on Europe’s grave”.
I beg to differ, Mr. Bean (not THE Mr. Bean, by any chance? That would explain lots.). I would have thought any fool would have seen that my criticism is towards the political driving forces of Europe, not the individual citizens. For your information – evidently much required – I regard UKIP as complete rubbish and resent your assumption that I am one of that useless mob. So you were bombed out in the war. So was I (we lived in the East End of London, not far from the docks), and even then I did not blame the bomber crews but the European politicians who gave them their orders. I, too, had my OHMS brown envelope for the call-up. I welcome all European Nationalists and would gladly shake their hands, but I despise the European Union, one reason for this being that the EU is taking away the democratic rights of European citizens – look at Greece, reduced to poverty by the EU, and particularly through the instrumentation of ANOTHER German Chancellor, this time aided and abetted by a Frenchman.
Peter: I was pleased to see your comment “I welcome all European Nationalists and would gladly shake their hands, but I despise the European Union”. That’s an important issue we can both agree upon, so we will call it a t ruce. I will withdraw the insult that you are a secret UKIP supporter.
Peter Mills, you claim to have a “personal awareness of the last 1500 years or so.” You must therefore know that we are descended from the Anglo-Saxons, Vikings and Normans that invaded the British Isles. They were all from mainland Europe, as were the Romans, Celts and Iberians who came before them. How can you say that you would “spit on Europe;s grave”? We are Europeans by blood, language and culture whether you like it or not. Your brand of petty nationalism will never appeal to a wider public.