The foundations and the evolution of the notion of European citizenship

Résumé du document

According to the European Commission, "citizenship of the Union is both a source of legitimation of the process of European integration, by reinforcing the participation of citizens, and a fundamental factor in the creation among citizens of a sense of belonging to the European Union and of having a genuine European identity". Pre-defined in the treaty of Rome in the form of the freedom of circulation of the miners, European citizenship is today reflected in the Maastricht through a number of freedoms furthered by the Amsterdam, such as freedom of circulation, right of residency in any member state, the protection of the EU by any member state embassy, the right of election and eligibility under certain conditions, right of petition before the EP or yet the possibility to write to the institutions and get an answer in one of the twelve official languages.

Extraits

[...] The rudimentary foundations of the European citizenship echo the particularities of the European integration A. The notion of the European citizenship in the treaties reflects the complexities of the European integration In 1992, the Maastricht treaty recognised the European citizenship to any person having the nationality of a member state resulting in the fact that as while no such term as European nationality exists, we find ourselves as having a “double identity” firstly that of a national citizen, then that of a European. [...]

[...] Conclusion We might thus conclude that the notion of the European citizenship is very complex: at once it unites the clear definition in the treaties and the fear of the citizens, the lack of nationality and the symbolic, the pragmatic and political responses. This reflects the very complexity of the European integration that should adopt the two-way road of looking for more democracy on the supranational level while furthering the common values from the political angle. Once the solution found and the road chose, we might ourselves whether the European citizenship does not constitute a vector for exclusion: giving possibilities of integration for the “Europeans” it excludes those we call migrants. [...]

[...] One should not question the European identity or citizenship, but accept their evolution. The original legitimacy of the EU formed on the pragmatism of concrete realisations as we have evoked with the freedoms of movement for the citizens, has in a way reached the limits of the integrationist logic, not providing a solution for the democratic deficit of the EU, that is to say the void between the “morale community” of everything that is social, geographical and cultural, and the “legal community” of the common laws and regulations (according to the expressions of Michaël Walzer). [...]

[...] Complex but often judged insufficient, European citizenship resembles none of the national citizenships we know, but yet has the same goal of uniting and integrating. Thus, we might ask ourselves, in which ways do the notion and application of the European citizenship explain the European integration? We shall see that the very foundations of the EU citizenship reflect the complexities of the integration, while the evolution of the notion explains the pragmatic distance of the citizens and provides some solutions for furthering the integration. [...]

[...] This notion was reinforced by the 2nd title of the project for a European constitution. Yet, the real situation is more complex just as is the integration as such: the question of the European citizenship and the rights attached to is raised with the arrival of new member states due to the lack of confidence that the citizens of member states manifest towards the new arrivals. This has occurred inn the case of Spain and Portugal in 1986, then in 2004 with the Eastern countries and now with Bulgaria and Romania: the “transition periods” imposed that reduce the freedom of movement reflect the difficulties of the integration, the abyss between the new and the old, the complexities of European integration often functioning at different speeds and from different angles. [...]