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.
[...] 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. [...]
[...] Yet, despite the evolution of the Union we have not seen what Magnette calls glissement de loyauté”, forging of new loyalties resulting in the formation of a strong European identity on the contractual basis but rather states' search for everything but the reduction of their sovereignty we should turn to a realist interpretation of the citizenship and the integration as such. 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). [...]
[...] This however does not mean that the European citizenship will replace the national one, as Amsterdam treaty clearly states, European citizenship completes the national citizenship and does not replace The very importance of the European citizenship in the complex process of the integration is evoked by the 23 Declaration of the Nice treaty that emphasises necessity for improving and ensuring permanently the democratic legitimacy and transparency of the Union and its institutions, in order to bring them closer to the citizens of the member states”. [...]
[...] The evolving perception of the notion of the European citizenship mirrors the very evolution of the Union A. The purely pragmatic framework of Europe as viewed by the citizens of the Union Actually, for the majority of European citizens, Europe is first seen as a totally new dimension of power that developed in parallel to the national institutions. In the idealistic call of the 1950s and from the angle of post-war fears and desires the Union was to replace, perhaps, one day the countries, as once the states replaced the feudal cities and forts. [...]
APA Style reference
For your bibliographyOnline reading
with our online readerContent validated
by our reading committee
