On June 20, 2025, the director of this office, Antonio Pedro Rodríguez Bernal, published a study in the prestigious Electronic Journal of International Studies (REEI) of the Spanish Association of Professors of International Law and International Relations.
The published study addresses the use of dual nationality as a geopolitical tool in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
This study analyzes how dual nationality has evolved from being a marginal concept in international law to becoming a powerful geopolitical tool, especially in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEECs). Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria are some of the countries that have granted citizenship to ethnically related populations in neighboring countries. Following the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and Russia’s policy of granting nationality to Russian minorities outside its territory, similar patterns to those of Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria become evident.
The study reviews the legal and doctrinal foundations of the right to nationality and plurinationality, the dangers of its use based on ethnic criteria, and how this practice has been instrumentalized to create a “supranation” that extends the influence of the issuing state beyond its borders.
The text also exposes the historical evolution of dual nationality regulation in Europe, from its rejection after the World Wars, through a stage of permissiveness associated with economic development and European integration, to a recent stage of crisis and conflict, in which nationality becomes a geopolitical tool of power and cultural influence.
