This Article engages the debate over the free movement of same-sex couples and explores what can, and should, be learned from the case law on the recognition of names. These “name cases” provide valuable lessons for both the proponents and opponents of same-sex marriage recognition. These cases show, first, that Member States are under the presumption to recognize marriages performed in other Member States. This Article also considers the importance of the national and constitutional identities of the Member States and suggests that there remains a possibility that Member States may justify the non-recognition of a marriage or deprive same-sex couples of some of the rights heterosexual married couples benefit from. The Article explores how the EU is confronted with a federal clash of values and offers some suggestions on how to solve this clash.

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UK nationals will lose their EU citizenship status as a result of the Brexit referendum. To prevent this, several commentators, including the European Parliament Brexit negotiator, Guy Verhofstadt, proposed the grant of associate EU citizenship to UK nationals to safeguard their rights as EU citizens after Brexit. We make the case against associate EU citizenship, dismissing it on three grounds. First, it violates the letter and the spirit of EU law. Second, it violates core EU values, including the EU's promise of respect for the constitutional traditions of the Member States, and the values of democracy and the Rule of Law. Third, it is against the EU's interests, as associate EU citizenship fails to respect reciprocity in EU relations with third countries and undermines the coherence of the edifice of EU constitutionalism.

The enjoyment of some rights by third-country nationals in the EU is not dependent on the primary beneficiary of rights (be it a person or a company), thereby connecting the third-country nationals with the law of the Union directly, without any proxy Moreover, in essence some of such rights are remarkably similar to the rights that EU citizens enjoy. Such directly enjoyable quasi-EU citizenship rights and their holdersmany a category of third country nationalsconstitute the key focus of this contribution, which aspires to walk through all the main statuses of third country nationals in the EU enjoying directas opposed to derivativequasi-citizenship rights in the Union. Concluding such overview three significant interrelated problems with the way how third country nationals are treated in the EU are outlined:EU migration regulation assumes the denial of the legal political reality of the Union; 1.