Following Brexit, UK nationals will not automatically preserve their rights as EU citizens, the EU's highest court said on June 15. British nationals who resided in the UK and a few other EU member states filed the appeal in an effort to overturn the Brexit departure agreement on the grounds that it violated the rights they had previously exercised and gained as EU citizens. The claimants had urged the court to revoke or partially revoke the EU's decision to ratify the Withdrawal Agreement in January 2020. The European Court of Justice, which has its headquarters in Luxembourg, upheld a previous General Court decision in a judgment by concluding that "the loss of the status of citizen of the European Union, and consequently the loss of the rights attached to that status, is an automatic consequence of the sole sovereign decision taken by the United Kingdom to withdraw from the European Union, and not of the withdrawal agreement or the Council's decision." The decision, which is not unexpected, essentially confirms that individuals from third countries or former member states may only obtain EU citizenship by becoming citizens of a member state of the union. One of the most contentious topics in the Brexit process has been the situation of Britons who still reside and work in the EU and their EU equivalents in the UK. Even though there are now 1.3 million Britons living in the EU and have obtained residency status in a member state, UK legislators have raised major concerns about residence programmes that apply to British nationals who were already residing in the EU before to Brexit. The fear of deportation for UK citizens who applied for residency status late will no longer exist, according to measures revealed by the Danish government earlier this year, albeit comparable risks still remain in Sweden, which has deported more than 1,000 British citizens, and other EU members. The EU committee of the UK parliament expressed concerns to Home Secretary Suella Braverman in May about the fact that funding for UK residents living in the EU had been significantly cut back since 2021 and that there was no formal organization to offer guidance to Britons who had already made their homes in the EU. They stated that the Independent Monitoring Authority, which exists in the UK to safeguard the rights of EU citizens, does not exist there. UK ministers stated that it is difficult for UK residents to obtain benefits and services if they have not applied for permanent residency at the most recent meeting of the EU-UK committee on citizens' rights.