Normative europee in materia di cognome e diritto all’identità

The free movement of people across the EU may find an obstacle in the various policies on surnames in force in the different Member States.
In fact, whereas certain States provide all children with double surname, combining together the surname of the mother and that of the father, some other countries are strictly preserving a patriarcal approach within the transmission of the surname or assigning the newborn the surname of the parent recognising the baby at first.
It is patent that the increasing number in cross-border families, together with the frequent movement of people across the EU, calls for the mutual recognition (if not standardization at all) of rules on surname, in order to permit everyone to use and be recognised by the same surname. The right to maintain one's own surname is not only linked to personal linings, but has a concrete impact on everyday life: passport, tax declaration, health insurance, electoral activities are all depending on surnames. Thus, despites several sentences of the EU Court of Justice have condamned those States which do not recognise the surname as it is written in the birth or residence Member State, the differences remain and the effective recognition of surnames is yet long to come. This paper analyses the actual rules on surnames in force in several EU Member States, in order to detect a possible line of intervention.