  This is the first paper of a series devoted to the Lambda Orionis
star-forming region, from the X-ray perspective, which will provide a
comprehensive view of this complex region. In this paper we focus in uncovering
the population of the central, young cluster Collinder 69 (C69), and in
particular those diskless members not identified by previous near- and
mid-infrared surveys, and to establish the X-ray luminosity function for the
association. We have combined two exposures taken with the XMM-Newton satellite
with an exhaustive data set of optical, near- and mid-infrared photometry to
assess the membership of the X-ray sources based on color-color and
color-magnitude diagrams, as well as other properties, such as effective
temperatures, masses and bolometric luminosities.
  We detected a total of 164 X-ray sources, of which 66 are probable and
possible cluster members. A total of 16 are newly identified probable members.
The two XMM-Newton pointings east and west of the cluster center have allowed
us to verify the heterogeneous spatial distribution of young stars, probably
related to the large scale structure of the region. The disk fraction of the
X-ray detected cluster sample is very low, close to 10%, in remarkable contrast
to the low-mass stellar and substellar population (mostly undetected in X-rays)
where the disk fraction reaches about 50%. The X-ray luminosity function of C69
provides support for an age of several Myr when compared with other well known
young associations. With our improved cluster census we confirm previous
reports on the untypically low disk fraction compared to other clusters of
several Myr age. The different disk fractions of X-ray detected (essentially
solar-like) and undetected (mostly low-mass stars and brown dwarfs) members can
be understood as a consequence of a mass-dependence of the time-scale for disk
evolution.
