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A group of British citizens who live in the Netherlands has gone to a Dutch court in a bid to retain their EU citizenship rights after Britain completes its divorce from the bloc.

In a case that could have far-reaching consequences for some 1 million Britons currently living in European Union countries outside the United Kingdom, lawyer Christiaan Alberdingk Thijm launched summary proceedings Wednesday before a judge at Amsterdam District Court.

Alberdingk Thijm says he wants the Amsterdam judge to put so-called "prejudicial questions" about the status of U.K. nationals post-Brexit to the European Court of Justice.

Alberdingk Thijm says that citizens' rights are clear when a country joins the EU, but nobody knows what happens when a country decides, as Britain has done, to leave.