The overall aim of this volume is twofold. First, it tries to deconstruct legal, political and social forces that affect the European citizenship jurisprudence generally. Second, and more particularly, it seeks to explain and contextualize the Court's shift towards a restrictive approach to free movement rights of European citizens. So far, literature has singled out two structural elements and three contextual factors, which could make the latter shift intelligible: the role of the legislator in the European Union and the role of law writ large, as well as the financial, the constitutional (Brexit), and the migration crisis. 1 Especially the latter increased the pressure on the Court to prioritize the general interests of the Member States over the colliding interests of individual European citizens. In this chapter, we do not question this explanation or the legal claim that the citizenship jurisprudence has become more restrictive. 2 Instead, we raise the question whether two institutional factors, namely internal re-organization and the professional composition of the Court contributed to this process of transformation alongside the external factors already identified. 3 To answer this question, we further unpack the shift toward the restrictive approach in greater detail and situate it more precisely in time. While existing scholarship provides a detailed map of the valid citizenship law and convincing explanations (or justifications) for the Court's change of heart, there remains a general lack of understanding of how internal and external factors interact over time and what is their combined effect on the content of the jurisprudence. To gauge this effect, we engage with the mechanisms of jurisprudential change, aka tools, which the Court (or any court) has at its disposal to develop, modify, clarify and legitimate its law-making action. These, rather than cases (judgments), become the units of systematic qualitative and quantitative analysis. We separately scrutinize the Court's approach to interpretation, the use of public policy arguments and reliance on past decisions, which are widely considered as rights-opening / pro individual. Our study focuses on:(1) The use of the teleological method of interpretation of relevant Treaty Articles and Directive 2004/38;(2) The use of the argument of the protection of public finances;(3) The change of a reference frame, meaning that references to more recent rights-limiting precedents 4 are replacing the references to the foundational jurisprudence. 5 1 For discussion on the factors see, XXXX in this volume, especially the chapter by S Reynolds. 2 For discussion of restrictive shift in this volume see, XXXX, cf. the chapter by F Wollenschläger, essentially suggesting the Court is only posturing a turn, or that, even if there is a turn, one does not yet know whether it concerns economically non actives.3 By internal organization we mean allocation of cases and decision-making in chambers rather than in the Grand Chamber. Professional composition refers to profes...