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The Court's ruling in Prinz and Seeberger sheds new light on the question of what constitutes a "sufficient degree of integration" between a Union citizen and the Member State. On further examination, the case also raises important questions about the implications of the "real link" test for the status of EU citizenship. Both A.G. Sharpston and the Court of Justice considered that a "sole condition of uninterrupted residence" was not proportionate in this case because it failed to recognise that the applicants could be "sufficiently connected" to the society of the Member State on the basis of other relevant social and economic factors. This comment examines how the Court's reasoning provides new substance for rejecting the formalistic definition of a "real link" under EU law. It then considers whether the assessment of integration requirements in the light of the "economic objective" and the "integration objective" can be completed with a more independent "equality objective" condition, which emerges from the status of EU citizenship as the "fundamental status of all Member State nationals".
