1. How are the legal databases organised?

EUDO Citizenship contains three legal databases: a chronology of national legislation, a case-law database, and an international norms database.

•  The chronology of national legislation presents a time-line of key citizenship legislation, organised according to the date on which the legislation was enacted. The database is searchable by country, year of enactment and keywords. The function of the chronology is to allow for time-specific legal research and to facilitate longitudinal analysis across the development of citizenship regimes.
• Practitioners and legal researchers wishing to access legislation of current legal validity should consult the appropriate Country Profile, from which consolidated versions of selected core citizenship legislation can be accessed. Legislation as subsequently amended can also be located in the database by clicking on the title of the legislation to reveal a drop-down menu.
• The case-law database presents a selection of judicial decisions that have a significant impact upon the interpretation and application of citizenship legislation. The database is searchable by country, keywords, and the year in which judgment was delivered, and results can be filtered to return either national case law or European and international case law.
• The international norms database contains a selection of international legal documents (Treaties/Covenants, Declarations, Resolutions, Recommendations, Protocols, and Explanatory Reports) pertaining to acquisition and loss of citizenship. The database is searchable by title, time period and country, or can be browsed according to the type of legal document.

A fourth legal database is currently under construction: the protection against statelessness database will provide information regarding the concordance between national citizenship laws and international legal standards on prevention of statelessness. 

Databases can be accessed directly from the menu on the left hand side of the EUDO Citizenship homepage, or via the respective Country Profile.

2. Do the databases provide a comprehensive record of citizenship law?

The databases contain a selection of data significant to the acquisition, exercise and loss of citizenship in Europe. Whilst EUDO Citizenship strives to continually develop the scope and content of the databases, the information contained therein is not intended to provide a comprehensive record of citizenship law.
Users are encouraged to consult other aspects of EUDO Citizenship in order to contextualise the information contained in the databases, including Country Profiles (from which Country Reports can be accessed) and databases on the acquisition and loss of citizenship. Users conducting comparative research may also wish to consult the Comparative Analyses and Policy Briefs, in addition to the forthcoming citizenship indicators that will allow for the systematic comparison of citizenship across a large number of countries.

3. Where in the databases do I find current citizenship legislation?

The chronology of national legislation database aims to provide copies of selected national legislation as it was originally enacted, in both the language of enactment and as translated into English. This data can be accessed via the large icons to the right of the legislation title.
Amended legislation is available either in the form of a consolidated text or as an entry into the database of the amending legislation. Consolidated versions of legislation can be accessed via a drop-down menu uncovered by clicking on the title of the legislation. This menu also indicates if the legislation has since been repealed.

4. Is the information contained in the databases guaranteed to be legally valid?

EUDO Citizenship endeavours to continually update the databases in order to reflect significant changes in citizenship legislation. Such changes may be noted in the citizenship news pages of the site in advance of amendment of the databases, and archived news items are searchable by keyword and date.
Whilst every effort is made to ensure the continued accuracy of information contained within the site, EUDO citizenship is unable to guarantee the legal validity of the databases at any given time and accepts no liability arising out of any error or omission contained therein.

5. Are the English translations official versions of legislation?

The English translations included within the databases should be assumed to be unofficial versions unless otherwise stated. Whilst EUDO Citizenship makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all translations provided on the site, such data is intended to supplement the original language text and should not be considered authoritative. EUDO Citizenship assumes no liability for any errors or omissions in translated documents.

6. Why do some fields in the database indicate N\A?

EUDO Citizenship attempts to provide comprehensive data for those laws selected for inclusion within the databases. This data may not however be available for each database entry, in which case the abbreviation N\A will appear in the relevant field.
In the event that primary documentation is not available within the database, users may wish to consult the relevant Country Report, accessible from the  Country Profile page, for qualitative analysis and supplementary information.