Hey there guys, I thought with the EU referendum coming up in a few weeks I'd do a video on article 20 of the TF EU, which is citizenship of the European Union. Now this doesn't really get mentioned very much in exams or in EU law courses, but I do think it's important and later on in the video I'll be talking about how you can use it as an addition to some of the other subjects that you will cover on your syllabus. I don't think it gets talked about for a couple of reasons.
First of all, it's really quite simple, only comes down to four key features in Article 20. And secondly, I don't think that people generally think about citizenship of the European Union. If, for example, someone was to ask me, where are you a citizen of? I would probably say England or Great Britain. I wouldn't really think of myself as an EU citizen, but that does have a range of...
rights and obligations that go with it which are really important and that we often forget about. So let's go through the four key features that I mentioned in article 20 and the first of those is the right to petition. Now about a week ago someone got in touch on one of my other videos and asked me is this particular regulation still in force? Is it still a rule?
And what would I have to do to make sure it got repealed? Now, I replied to the person and said, well, actually, you can contact the Commission, the European Commission, talk to them and they will respond to you. And actually, they have an obligation to respond to you because you are a citizen of the EU under Article 20. So it's really interesting, right? One that we don't think about very much. But that's part of it.
Another part is relating to diplomacy. So summer's coming up. A lot of people are going on holiday. And if you went to America, for example, and got in trouble with the police, normally if you were like a UK citizen like me, you'd contact the British embassy.
But because of Article 20 and because I am a citizen of the EU, I'd actually be able to get in touch with any of the embassies relating to the 28 member states. So I'd be able to go to the Portuguese embassy, to the Irish embassy. and they would have an obligation to help me in the same way that the British Embassy would. So again, a really important right and one that's useful to remember even outside of a legal context.
The third right relates to voting, so we vote every few years for members of the European Parliament and we're allowed to do that because we are citizens of the European Union under Article 20. Also, people often forget about this, but it also includes the right to stand as a candidate for the European Parliament as well. So one of the best ways to get things changed if you don't like the way things are going in Europe is to stand as a candidate for the European Parliament and actually be there in Brussels and get things done yourself. Now, finally, in relation to Article 20, the most important right that's established with citizenship of the European Union.
is the right to freedom of movement. And this is really important. It links to one of my other videos which I did on Article 45 which is free movement of workers but Article 20 is a bit more generic.
There are limitations on it that you can sort of look into in more detail but the general principle still stands that people do have the right to freedom of movement. So that's Article 20. If we were using it in an exam or a coursework context often doesn't come up on its own, but as I've already mentioned, if you're answering a question on the free movement of workers under Article 45, a good way to start that answer might be to mention Article 20 and to say that citizenship of the European Union is really important, and that that Article 20 provides almost like a bedrock for establishing further rights, such as those in Article 45. Those two are very closely linked together. We can also think about things like...
political questions that sometimes come up in exams like the democratic deficit within the European Union. Now when you're answering that question you will obviously talk about things like voting in elections and the commission things like that but mentioning article 20 is a really good way of getting the legal basis for citizenship in there and mentioning some of the rights and obligations that go along with citizenship of the European Union. Finally, you may also want to mention it when discussing the institutions.
In particular, as I mentioned, the Commission has an obligation to respond to petitions from citizens of the European Union and so it links quite well with that as well. Thank you very much for watching this short video. If you liked it then leave a thumbs up below.
Any questions or comments then leave them below as well and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. And if you'd like to subscribe for more videos that really helps my channel so thank you very much. If for those of you who've already subscribed and if you haven't done so already, hit that subscribe button. Thanks again for watching. Bye!