Case C‑541/15

Proceedings brought by Mircea Florian Freitag

(Request for a preliminary ruling from the Amtsgericht Wuppertal)

(Reference for a preliminary ruling — Citizenship of the Union — Article 21 TFEU — Freedom to move and reside in the Member States — Individual having the nationality of both the Member State in which he resides and the Member State in which he was born — Change of surname in the Member State of birth not carried out during a period of habitual residence — Name corresponding to birth name — Application for the entry of that name in the civil register of the Member State of residence — Rejection of that application — Reason — Name not acquired during a period of habitual residence — Existence of other procedures in national law to have that name recognised)

Summary — Judgment of the Court (Second Chamber), 8 June 2017

Citizenship of the Union — Right to move and reside freely in the territory of the Member States — National legislation governing the way in which a person’s surname is entered on certificates of civil status — Refusal of a Member State to recognise, as regards a national of that Member State, who also possesses the nationality of another Member State, a surname lawfully acquired in that other Member State, which was not acquired during a period of habitual residence and which corresponds to his birth name — Not permissible — Limit — Existence of other procedures in national law to have that name recognised

(Art. 21 TFEU)

Article 21 TFEU must be interpreted as precluding the registry office of a Member State from refusing to recognise and enter in the civil register the name legally acquired by a national of that Member State in another Member State, of which he is also a national, and which is the same as his birth name, on the basis of a provision of national law which makes the possibility of having such an entry made, by declaration to the registry office, subject to the condition that that name must have been acquired during a period of habitual residence in that other Member State, unless there are other provisions of national law which effectively allow the recognition of that name.

It follows from settled case-law that although, as EU law stands at present, the rules governing the way in which a person’s surname is entered on certificates of civil status are matters coming within the competence of the Member States, the latter must nonetheless, when exercising that competence, comply with EU law and, in particular, with the FEU Treaty provisions on the freedom of every citizen of the Union to move and reside in the territory of the Member States (judgments of 2 October 2003, Garcia Avello, C‑148/02, EU:C:2003:539, paragraph 25; of 14 October 2008, Grunkin and Paul, C‑353/06, EU:C:2008:559, paragraph 16; of 22 December 2010, Sayn-Wittgenstein, C‑208/09, EU:C:2010:806, paragraphs 38 and 39, and of 12 May 2011, Runevič-Vardyn and Wardyn, C‑391/09, EU:C:2011:291, paragraph 63, and of 2 June 2016, Bogendorff von Wolffersdorff, C‑438/14, EU:C:2016:401, paragraph 32).

In that respect, in order for administrative provisions such as the German administrative provisions relating to names, taken in their entirety, to be regarded as compatible with EU law, the provisions or the domestic procedure allowing an application to be made for a change of name must not make the implementation of the rights conferred by Article 21 TFEU impossible or excessively difficult. In principle, it is immaterial, from the point of view of EU law, under which national provision or procedure the applicant is able to assert his rights concerning his name.

In the absence of EU legislation in respect of modification of surnames, it is for the domestic legal system of each Member State to determine the detailed rules laid down by national law and intended to safeguard the rights which individuals derive from EU law, provided, first, that those rules are not less favourable than those governing rights which originate in domestic law (principle of equivalence) and, second, that they do not render impossible or excessively difficult in practice the exercise of rights conferred by the EU legal order (principle of effectiveness) (see, inter alia, by analogy, judgments of 12 September 2006, Eman and Sevinger, C‑300/04, EU:C:2006:545, paragraph 67; 3 July 2014, Kamino International Logistics and Datema Hellmann Worldwide Logistics, C‑129/13 and C‑130/13, EU:C:2014:2041, paragraph 75, and of 8 March 2017, Euro Park Service, C‑14/16, EU:C:2017:177, paragraph 36).

(see paras 33, 41, 42, 47, operative part)