ABSTRACT – The recent Opinion of Advocate General de la Tour in Cases C-808/21, Commission v Czech Republic, and C-814/21, Commission v Poland, provide an opportunity to focus on the right to stand as a candidate of ‘mobile’ citizens of the EU and the possibility for Member States to introduce limitations and derogations to their right to become members of a political parties. In a broader context characterised by the objective of creating a European political conscience and pending the pronouncement of the Court of Justice of the European Union, the present paper aims to evaluate whether, as argued by the Commission and endorsed by the Advocate General, Poland and the Czech Republic have gone beyond the margin of discretion granted to them by European Union law or, on the contrary, whether, as argued by those countries, the limitation of membership of political parties to national citizens only is a justified measure under Article 4(2) TEU.
