MEPS REJECT REPORT ON EUROPEAN CITIZENSHIP.

Despite reaching consensus on the majority of the text, Giusto Catania's (EUL/NGL, Italy) own-initiative report on European citizenship was rejected by the European Parliament in plenary session in Strasbourg on January 17 (276 votes for, 347 against and 22 abstentions). MEPs approved the paragraph calling for non-EU citizens, residing in the EU for more than five years, to have the right to vote in regional elections, as well as passages giving EU citizens residing in another member state, the right to vote in local and regional elections (another debate on the subject of national elections is to be scheduled). But numerous controversial paragraphs giving immigrants new rights were deleted from the text thereby taking the wind out of the report's sails which, according to European circles, would explain the majority rejection in the final vote.

The text which had been approved by the Civil Liberties Committee on January 12 takes into account the "representation crisis" and specifies that European citizenship could be a concrete subject with which to renew the debate on the future of the Union. Basically, the text invites "member states which have not...