Introduction: Future Challenges of European Citizenship—Facing a Wide‐Open Pandora's Box

• Author: Samantha Besson,André Utzinger
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0386.2007.00384.x
• Published date: 01 September 2007
• Date: 01 September 2007

Introduction: Future Challenges of

European Citizenship—Facing a

Wide-Open Pandora’s Box

Samantha Besson* and André Utzinger**

I Introduction

This special issue arose from a conference at the University of Fribourg in May 2006 on

the future challenges of European Union citizenship (hereafter EU or Union citizen-

ship).1Object of a burgeoning literature in the past decade,2the topic of Union

* Professor of Public International Law and European Law, European Law Institute, University of

Fribourg (Switzerland). This article was written within the framework of the Project for a European

Philosophy of European Law with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation (http://

fns.unifr.ch/people).

** SNF Post-Doctoral Research Assistant, University of Fribourg (Switzerland).

1Thanks are due to all the participants in the conference whose papers and commentaries did so much to

enrich the debate and enhance the quality of the f‌inal product and, in particular, to Thomas Fleiner,

Francis Jacobs, Dora Kostakopoulou, and Paul Magnette (speakers), as well as to Francis Cheneval,

Astrid Epiney, Jörg Paul Müller and Otto Pfersmann (commentators). Thanks are also due to the Swiss

National Science Foundation, the Swiss Federal Off‌ice for Personnel and the Swiss Association for

European Law for their support of the 19 May 2006 BENEFRI Conference in European law.

2Among the major contributions in the period between 1992 and 2000, one may mention in particular

J.H. Carens, ‘Aliens and Citizens: The Case for Open Borders’, in R. Beiner (ed.), Theorizing Citizenship

(SUNY Press, 1995); C. Closa, ‘The Concept of Citizenship in the Treaty on European Union’, (1992) 29

Common Market Law Review 1137; G. Delanty, Citizenship in a Global Age: Society, Culture, Politics

(Open University Press, 2000); M. Everson, ‘The Legacy of the Market Citizen’, in J. Shaw and G. More

(eds), New Legal Dynamics of European Union (Clarendon, 1995); J. Habermas, ‘Staatsbürgerschaft und

nationale Identität’, in J. Habermas, Faktizität und Geltung (Suhrkamp, 1992); J. Habermas, ‘Der

europäische Nationalstaat—Zu Vergangenheit und Zukunft von Souveränität und Staatsbürgerschaft’,

in J. Habermas, Die Einbeziehung des Anderen (Suhrkamp, 1996); H. U. Jessurun d’Oliveira, ‘European

Citizenship: Its Meaning, its Potential’, in R. Dehousse (ed.), Europe After Maastricht: An Ever Closer

Union? (Beck, 1994); D. Kostakopoulou, ‘Towards a Theory of Constructive Citizenship in Europe’,

(1996) 4 The Journal of Political Philosophy 337; W. Kymlicka and W. Norman, ‘Return of the Citizen:

A Survey of Recent Work on Citizenship Theory’, (1994) 104 Ethics 352; P. B. Lehning and A. Weale

(eds), Citizenship, Democracy and Justice in the New Europe (Routledge, 1997); P. Magnette, La

Citoyenneté européenne: Droits, politiques, institutions (Editions de l’Université de Bruxelles, 1999);

U. K. Preuss, ‘Problems of a Concept of European Citizenship’, (1995) 1 European Law Journal 267;

U. K. Preuss, ‘Citizenship in the European Union: A Paradigm for Transnational Democracy?’, in

D. Archibugi, D. Held and M. Köhler (eds), Re-imagining Political Community: Studies in Cosmopolitan

Democracy (Stanford University Press, 1998); J. Shaw, ‘The Interpretation of European Union Citizen-

ship’, (1998) 61 The Modern Law Review 293; M. La Torre (ed.), European Citizenship: An Institutional

Challenge (Kluwer, 1998); J. H. H. Weiler, ‘Does Europe Need a Constitution? Ref‌lections on Demos,

Telos, and the German Maastricht Decision’, (1995) 1 European Law Journal 219; J. H. H. Weiler, ‘To be

a European Citizen: Eros and Civilization’, in J. H. H. Weiler, The Constitution of Europe: ‘Do the New

Clothes Have an Emperor?’, and Other Essays on European Integration (Cambridge University Press,

European Law Journal, Vol. 13, No. 5, September 2007, pp. 573–590.

© 2007 The Authors

Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK

and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA

citizenship has been sidelined in the past few years by the enlargement process and the

constitutional debate in Europe.3This apparent academic neglect does not ref‌lect the

legal, social and political reality, however, given the crucial development of EU citi-

zenship rights in the legislation and case-law since 2002 and the decisive impact of

European enlargement and constitutional discourse on the understanding of identity

and solidarity in Europe. These changes and the new questions they raise provided the

impetus for the present collection of articles.

First introduced by the Maastricht Treaty, and subsequently revised by the Amster-

dam Treaty, EU citizenship long remained an empty promise.4Even if it did not offer

much in terms of new rights at f‌irst, EU citizenship has now become a key element of

the rising European polity. Recently, indeed, and thanks primarily to the European

Court of Justice’s (ECJ) case-law and its codif‌ication in Directive 2004/38/EC on the

rights of movement and residence of EU citizens and their family,5things have started

to change. European citizenship is slowly becoming a direct source of rights outside the

economic context, and some of these rights have even gradually been extended to third

country nationals (TCNs) legally residing in the EU, thus leading to greater social and

potentially political inclusion.

This evolution raises a number of questions, however, which are still to a large extent

left open. Clearly, the ECJ’s path-breaking case-law has conf‌irmed that EU citizenship

could hold its promises6and contains the ‘normative surplus’ scholars had previously

announced it had.7Nevertheless, these recent developments have lacked a clear line and

a coherent concept of what it is to be a European citizen. Moreover, by developing

some aspects of EU citizenship and neglecting others,8the ECJ’s incremental approach

has made choices which are largely irreversible and is therefore reducing the initial

potential load of what Follesdal once called the ‘beast of burden’ of EU citizenship.9

Finally, the eminently judicial development of EU citizenship raises diff‌icult questions

1999); J. H. H. Weiler, U. Haltern and F. Mayer, ‘European Democracy and Its Critics—Five Uneasy

Pieces’, Jean Monnet Working Papers 1/95 (1995); A. Wiener, ‘Making Sense of the New Geography of

Citizenship: Fragmented Citizenship in the European Union’, (1997) 26 Theory and Society 529.

3Of course, there are a few important exceptions since 2000, for instance R. Bellamy and A. Warleigh (eds),

Citizenship and Governance in the European Union (Continuum, 2001); R. Bellamy, D. Castiglione and

J. Shaw (eds), Making European Citizens: Civic Inclusion in a Transnational Context (Palgrave, 2006);

S. Benhabib, The Rights of Others: Aliens, Residents, and Citizens (Cambridge University Press, 2004),

pp. 229–255; R. W. Davis, ‘Citizenship of the Union...RightsforAll?’,(2002) 27 European Law Review

121; A. Follesdal, ‘Union Citizenship: Unpacking the Beast of Burden’, (2001) 20 Law and Philosophy

313; U. Haltern, ‘Das Janusgesicht der Unionsbürgerschaft’, (2005) 11 Swiss Political Science Review 87;

S. Kadelbach, ‘Union Citizenship’, Jean Monnet Working Paper 9/03 (2003); D. Kostakopoulou, ‘Ideas,

Norms and European Citizenship: Explaining Institutional Change’, (2005) 68 Modern Law Review 233;

J. D. Mather, ‘The Court of Justice and the Union Citizen’, (2005) 11 European Law Journal 722;

N. Reich, ‘Union Citizenship—Metaphor or Source of Rights?’, (2001) 7 European Law Journal 4.

4See, e.g., Jessurun d’Oliveira, op. cit. note 2 supra; H. U. Jessurun d’Oliveira, ‘Union Citizenship: Pie in

the Sky?’, in A. Rosas and E. Antola (eds), A Citizens’ Europe: In Search of a New Order (Sage, 1995).

5Directive 2004/38/EC on the right of citizens of the Union and their family members to move and reside

freely within the territory of the Member States, [2004] OJ L158/77.

6See Kostakopoulou in this issue, p. 623.

7See, e.g., Follesdal, op. cit. note 3 supra; Kostakopoulou, op. cit. note 3 supra; S. Weatherill, Cases &

Materials on EU Law (Oxford University Press, 7th edn, 2006), pp. 477–499; Weiler, ‘To be a European

Citizen’, op. cit. note 2 supra.

8For instance, Case C-60/00, Carpenter v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2002] ECR I-6279,

whose reasoning remains contested, could have been decided without reference to EU citizenship.

9Follesdal, op. cit. note 3 supra.

European Law Journal Volume 13

© 2007 The Authors

574 Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.