Introduction

This chapter investigates the historical origins of the electoral rights guaranteed under European Union law and the development of a constitutional framework for these rights, in the wider context of the evolution of European citizenship in legal and political terms. It is the first of four chapters on the past, present and possible future of electoral rights in the European Union. In essence, the story of electoral rights in the EU can be seen as a microcosm of some of the key variables at play within the story of EU integration more generally: the shift from a concern with economic questions to a concern with political and social questions; the role of legal rights in structuring key political developments; the gradual hardening of ‘soft’ institutions into hard legal and constitutional form, with all the attendant questions raised about legitimacy and effectiveness of such institutions; and finally the question of national implementation and the interaction between EU developments and the national constitutions and constitutional traditions of the Member States.

In setting the scene for the study of electoral rights for non-nationals, the basic principles of citizenship of the Union were presented and discussed in Chapter 1. In Chapter 2, I took the argument further by presenting the tension existing within citizenship of the Union between the market and the polity. Is Union citizenship at root an economic concept, or a political one? The post-Maastricht case law of the Court of Justice on citizenship of the Union was highlighted as arguably moving the concept away from a primary focus on the economic nexus between the free-moving EU citizen and the host Member State, and I will return to that specific question when referring to the post-Maastricht developments in citizenship as one context in which to draw conclusions about the current state of EU electoral rights in Chapter 5.