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This article argues that the autonomy of eu law conveys a set of rules and principles but also constitutes a principle of eu law on its own terms. Its features suggest a distinctive existential character, in light of its internal and external reach but, particularly, a quality of extremity that has come to define its implications. Reflecting on the nature of autonomy matters because of the closing down of space for compromise it produces and what is uncovered about the nature of eu primary law in consequence. The effects of autonomy have principally concerned the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice, but the wider focus on autonomy of “Union decision-making” as a “core principle” of Brexit negotiations, for the eu part, reactivates a more generalised understanding of what the principle commands. That process also tests the extent to which an understanding of autonomy as an existential principle should be sustained.

Ten years ago, the Bayerisches Landessozialgericht referred four questions to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling; the resulting judgment on María Martínez Sala’s entitlement to a child-raising allowance finally yanked the concept of Union citizenship from its sluggish hinterland in the EC Treaty and launched the Court and the Community legislature on a mission—to uncover the substantive content and scope of citizenship, and to realise its potential as an autonomous rights-giving force. The intervening decade has seen enthusiastic, if not always coherent, progression of this vocation, and thereby renewed animation of Community law on the free movement of persons. Much work in this field seeks to plot the evolving rights for EU citizens; but what about the position of the Member States? Their capacity to determine and manage their own immigration rules had already been eroded by ‘traditional’ Community law on workers, establishment and services.

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