The Court of Justice of the EU has ruled (case C-541/15) that a member state can refuse to recognise automatically the birth name legally recovered by one of its nationals in another member state in which this national also has nationality, if the national law of the first state has arrangements that enable this recognition to be requested.
The Court was questioned by the German legal system about the case of Mr Mircea Freitag, who was born in Romania, the legitimate son of the Pavels (the name of his Romanian father), and who had acquired German nationality following the second marriage of his mother in Germany to a German national, Mr Freitag, who had adopted him. Living in Germany, the interested party had his name changed in Romania by taking back the name of his biological father. The German authorities asked the Court if they had to recognise this change of name automatically.
The Court replied that the German authorities can refuse this automatic recognition, when a procedure exists in German law that enables the interested party to ask the administration to acquire the right to bear the name obtained in another member state, justifying this request on "serious" grounds, which can be, in this case, the removal of a different surname for a national having dual nationality. (Original version in French by Francesco Gariazzo)