Interesting...EU Passports?

digitalscream · June 2016

Just spotted this:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/29/european-states-mull-giving-eu-citizenship-to-uk-students-after/

Basically, they're considering giving students European passports so they can study abroad. Now, this is interesting, because - to my knowledge - there's no such thing as a European passport, only passports issued by member states which confirm EU citizenship as a side-effect of being a citizen of a member state.

So...if they do this, then they're actually creating a new type of passport for a particular class of people, which - to my understanding of EU discrimination law - they can't withhold from other classes of individual, on the basis that it's ageism-by-proxy (on average). Alternatively, if there's no age-based component, you could register as a student at any age and get the right to a passport (thus skipping any potential future visa requirements if freedom of movement isn't part of the exit deal).

Now, obviously I'm not a lawyer, but surely if they're successful this would open the door to the possibility of other UK citizens being able to challenge the class-specific nature of it and get an EU passport which is valid after we've left the EU?

monquixote · June 2016

The condition might be that you earn a scholarship at a top university and complete your course in which case I expect they will be happy to dish out a passport.

digitalscream · June 2016

monquixote said:

The condition might be that you earn a scholarship at a top university and complete your course in which case I expect they will be happy to dish out a passport.

If you complete the course, you're no longer a student...which kind of defeats the point. The article is obviously light on details, but even so...creating this new EU passport and restricting it to a class of people strikes me as very open to a discrimination challenge.

Clearly the French will probably ignore it like they do everything else, but still...

Whitecat · June 2016

What's the difference between applying for a hypothetical "EU passport" and simply a student visa (which have to be the easiest document in the world to get if you are scholarly and have been accepted at a university) ?

Seems like an unnecessary complication.

Moss · June 2016

Wrong section (again)

Jimbro66 · June 2016

Moss said:

Wrong section (again)

Ah, I thought it meant all new members get an EU passport.

skankdelvar · June 2016

An entirely new class of passport and citizenship out of thin air? Renzi making up 'policy' as he goes along.

He probably said it for a laugh; but then, Renzi needs a laugh right now. Italy's economy going to pieces and the euro-phobic 5-Star Movement is about to ram a barbed wire-wrapped traffic cone up his arse at the next election.

quarky · June 2016

"Passports, passports..

Buy a university course, get your own passport!"

littlegreenman · June 2016

It's entirely possible that the EU could simply add a Vignette to page 6 (or 8, if you've got a new one!) to an existing British passport giving the holder EU citizen's rights.

We already do a UK version of this for Hong Kong nationals in their Non-EU British Citizen passports. They have rights to enter and work in the UK, but none of the EU citizens rights to free movement on the continent.