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The Content of European Citizenship

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2019

Pavlos Eleftheriadis

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Many European Union law scholars, commentators and politicians consider the creation of European citizenship by the Treaty of Maastricht an important landmark in the process towards “ever closer union.” By marking a special relationship with the Union itself, citizenship epitomizes the growing maturity of the Union as a political community and not merely an economic project of a single market. Citizenship introduces the first elements of a political, social, and emotional bond between the peoples of Europe and their new Union. Nonetheless, the content of European citizenship remains a puzzle. The rights it grants are very different to those promised by states. When looked at in detail, it fails to match many of the most central elements of citizenship.

One of the problems in this area is that there is no single common core of citizenship rights. State citizenship in general marks a special relationship with a political community marked by a bundle of rights and duties, yet that relationship takes many forms.1 Some sociological accounts present a model of citizenship with many components disaggregated and broken down as overlapping identifications.2 Nevertheless, even these theories presuppose that the primary case of citizenship is some type of special belonging or attachment to a political community. Multiple national or other identities do not challenge the idea of a special attachment to a single set of institutions. In fact, they presuppose it. A theory of citizenship must explain the content of this special bond between the citizens and his or her political community and must explain whether or to what extent such a special bond has moral value sufficient to create moral obligations on those sharing it.3

Type
Special Issue EU Citizenship: Twenty Years On
Information
German Law Journal , Volume 15 , Issue 5: Special Issue EU Citizenship: Twenty Years On , 01 August 2014 , pp. 777 - 796
Copyright
Copyright © 2014 by German Law Journal GbR 

References

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