Multiple Citizenship - Supra-national Citizenship

Supra-national Citizenship

• In European Union law there is the concept of EU citizenship which flows from citizenship of a member state. A citizen of an EU country is free to live and to work in another EU country for an unlimited period of time, but member states may reserve the right to vote in national elections, stand for national election, become a public servant in highly sensitive ministries (Defence for example), etc. only for their citizens. An EU state may place restrictions on the free movement rights of citizens of newly admitted states for several years, such provisions remain in force mostly for nationals of Bulgaria and Romania (no later than 2014 but 2016 for Switzerland); in the past, and to a lesser extent, such provisions also affected Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Slovenia.
• The Commonwealth of Nations has a Commonwealth citizenship for the citizens of its members. Some member states (such as the United Kingdom) allow non-nationals who are Commonwealth citizens to vote and stand for election while resident there. Others make little or no distinction between citizens of other Commonwealth nations and citizens of non-Commonwealth nations.
• Commonwealth of Independent States nations (the republics of the former Soviet Union) are often eligible for fast track processing to citizenships of other CIS countries, with varying degrees of recognition/tolerance of dual citizenship among the states.