Symposium on citizenship: Foreword

Springer eBooks, 2017

This chapter gives a swift overview of the workings and principal rights associated with European citizenship. Some insight into the historical evolution of the status is offered. The major entitlements are explained as well as important case-law. The aim is to provide an outline of the essentials of European citizenship for the purpose of understanding the arguments made in this book. Keywords European citizenship Á Brexit Á United Kingdom Á Freedom of movement Á Right of residence Á EU law Á EU citizens' rights The status of European citizenship was introduced in European law with the Maastricht Treaty in 1992. Let us see what steps were taken to establish this particular form of status civitatis that differs from the standard legal form of citizenship that we are used to consider equivalent to nationality. It is additional to having member state nationality. It entails a series of rights that nationals of member states would not enjoy if they were not European citizens. This confers a degree of independence to the content of the status. It is not, however, an autonomous status. Yet, member states are not fully autonomous in exercising discretion over who gets access to the status. This overview shows what makes European citizenship a status sui generis that is not constituted in the same way as nationality in unitary states or dual citizenship commonly found in federal systems. The aim of this chapter is

2006

The recognition of European citizenship by the Treaty on European Union (Treaty of Maastricht) introduced a novel legal institution into the European construction, hitherto unknown in international law. Its historical importance and nature will be analysed through different perspectives. The analysis of the structure of European citizenship reveals main advantages and disadvantages of the current concept. However, in its current form, it offers a very limited list of rights. Until recently, citizens’ rights were neglected and invisible at the level of the European Union. This is especially visible in the policies towards the candidate and accession countries, which are obliged to follow certain human rights standards in order to meet the conditions for membership. The importance and meaning of European citizenship for third country nationals has been emphasised over the last few years.

The three central theses of this article are as follows. First, “European citizenship” is an unhappy misnomer. Those holding the status of “European citizens” do enjoy a certain number of rights and have a number of obligations as European citizens. But such rights and obligations fall widely short of those proper of citizenship in a normatively demanding sense (or what is the same, in the sense that is proper of the Social and Democratic Rechtsstaat). So European citizenship is no citizenship. Second, the “gap” between European citizenship and citizenship in a normative sense has been customarily accounted by reference to the “embryonic” character of European citizenship. European citizenship will be a citizenship in the making. misnomer “European citizenship” is an increasingly dangerous one. Some of the rights that make up “European citizenship” do undermine the very ground on which citizenship (normatively demanding citizenship) rests. The economic rights that are a crucial component of European citizenship (the four economic freedoms as constructed by the European Court of Justice and applied by the European Commission) undercut the collective goods that constitute the backbone of the Social and Democratic Rechtsstaat. .. Third, it is urgent that European citizenship is redefined in line with the normative ideal of citizenship in the Social and Democratic Rechtsstaat.

1998

papers.ssrn.com

Comparative Law Review, 2011

The mass migration phenomenon calls into question the meaning of citizenship status in contemporary constitutional democracies as it represents a quest for a kind of global solidarity. This article explores the transformation of the concept of status civitatis from a European comparative perspective. The emerging role of citizenship in today political communities will be examined through the legislations concerning the recognition and protection of social rights of non citizens since: whilst on the one hand they are tied to citizenship through a nexus of principle, on the other hand they entail individual legal rights recognised under case law as having universal status. Relevant provisions of Italian, Spanish, French, Belgian and Dutch laws will be analysed with a view of sketching a map of problems and (possible) solutions. The comparison among European legal systems is, at the end, put to the test of theories that suggest moving beyond the idea of citizenship as a solution to the human rights/universal rights dialectic.

2009

List of figures and tables 11 Preface 15 Andre Liebich Introduction: Altneuländer or the vicissitudes of citizenship in the new EU states 21 1 New states and old concerns, or why there is not much plural citizenship in the Altneuländer 21 2 Old categories and new principles, or how ethnicity has trumped other grounds of citizenship 24 3 Old wrongs and new rights, or how to use citizenship to correct history 31 4 Conclusion: The historical past, the ethnic present and the immigrant future 37 Annex: Constitutional preambles (extracts) 38 PART I RESTORED STATES Priit Järve 1 Estonian citizenship: Between ethnic preferences and democratic obligations 45 1.1 History of Estonian nationality 45 1.2 Basic principles of the most important current modes of acquisition and loss of nationality 50 1.3 Current debates on nationality 53 1.4 Statistics on acquisition of nationality since 1992 58 1.5 Conclusions 60 Kristīne Krūma 2 Checks and balances in Latvian nationality policies: National agendas and international frameworks 67 2.1 History of nationality policy 67 2.2 Basic principles for the acquisition and loss of nationality 74 2.3 Current political debates 80 2.4 Statistics 83 2.5 Conclusions 88 Kristīne Krūma 3 Lithuanian nationality: Trump card to independence and its current challenges 97 3.1 History of nationality policy 97 3.2 Basic principles of the most important current modes of acquisition and loss of nationality 106 3.3 Current political debates 112 3.4 Statistics 114 3.5 Conclusions 116

2003

2009

Constellations, 1998

This article evaluates existing practices and institutions in the European Union in the light of the complex concept of citizenship. A prime example of such a normative political theoretical concept is "liberal democratic citizenship." The core ideas of this concept of citizenship, which consists of two constitutive elements, rights and identity, are the following. 2 When justifying one set of political arrangements relative to others "liberal democratic citizenship" ultimately makes reference to the interests of individuals, and does not stop at the interests of collective entities like cultures, churches, communities, languages, or nation-states. Liberal democratic citizenship is based on a minimal democratic criterion: the interests of each person are entitled to equal consideration. This individualist assumption is in line with the fact that we have to take into account the social and cultural pluralism of modern societies, and that from a liberal perspective, citizens should have the equal ability to choose their own conception of the good. The conception of citizenship offered is based upon principles of right, rather than the common good. The consequence of this argument is that there is a distinction to be made between how we understand ourselves as citizens within the political system and how we may regard ourselves in our personal affairs or within certain intermediate associations. Members of liberal democracies have, at least, a "double identity," resulting in several kinds of commitments and attachments. In their personal or private capacity, they are seen as holding a view about what a valuable life consists of, their non-institutional identity so to speak. But they have also public, or institutional identities: citizens have usually both political and nonpolitical aims and commitments. Another, related consequence of the idea of liberal democratic citizenship is that public identity is dissociated from identity based on "ethnos." What is significant about ethnicity is that it is negative: it is not (generally speaking) possible to join an ethnic group by an act of will. Individuals cannot choose their ethnicity. The reason why ethnicity cannot in itself be a basis for common citizenship is that there is no necessary connection between "descent," which is a