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The Evolution of European Union Citizenship

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Abstract

In the 1990s most scholars saw European citizenship as a purely decorative and symbolic institution which added little new to the ‘pre-Maastricht’ regime of free movement rights. In addition, many felt the need to defend the primacy of national citizenship by highlighting the derivative nature and weak content of European citizenship. Accordingly, its transformative potential remained at the margins of the debate. Despite such assessments, European Union citizenship has matured as an institution, owing to a number of important interventions by the European Court of Justice and legislative initiatives, such as the Citizenship Directive (Dir 2004/38).

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Notes

  1. This is because they are either active economic actors or self-sufficient and in possession of sickness insurance under the 1990 three residence Directives (90/364, 90/365 and 90/366, which was replaced by Directive 93/96). The European Parliament and Council Directive of 29 April 2004 on the right of citizens of the Union and their Family Members to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States (2004/38/EC), which repeals the above mentioned Directives, introduces three separate categories of residence rights and establishes an unqualified right of permanent residence after five years of continuous legal residence in the host Member State; OJ 2004 L 158/77 (30 April 2004).

  2. The European Year was launched in Brussels on 20–21 February 2006. See also the Commission's Communication on action for skills and mobility, COM(2002) 72 final.

  3. See the Commission's Communication to the Council and the European Parliament, The Hague Programme – Ten Priorities for the next five years, COM(2005) 184 final and Council Regulation 168/2007 establishing a European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights OJ 2007 L 53/1.

  4. Council Decision 2004/100/EC of 26 January 2004, establishing a Community action programme to promote active European citizenship, OJ L30, 4/2/2004. The programme has awarded grants to a number of organisations that promote civic participation in the EU over a three-year period (2004–2006).

  5. Proposal for a decision of the European Parliament and of the Council, of 6 April 2005, establishing for the period 2007–2013 the programme ‘Citizens for Europe’ to promote active European citizenship; COM(2005) 116 final. The main aims of the programme are to enhance interaction among European citizens and civic participation, with the aim of promoting intercultural dialogue and a sense of European identity. Three types of action have been envisaged, namely, ‘active citizens for Europe’, ‘active civil society in Europe’ and ‘together for Europe’, and the proposed budget for the implementation of the programme is €235 million.

  6. See the Commission's third report on Union citizenship; COM (2001) 506 final.

  7. Bull. EC 10-1992 I 8.9. The Amsterdam Treaty added the statement that ‘Union citizenship shall complement national citizenship’ to Article 8(1) EC (Article 17(1) on renumbering).

  8. Case C-369/90 Micheletti and Others v Delegacion del Gobierno en Catanbria [1992] ECR I- 4329.

  9. Case C-192/99 R v Secretary of State for the Home Department, ex parte Kaur [2001] ECR I-1237, para 19.

  10. Case C-200/02 Kunqian Catherine Zhu and Man Lavette Chen v Secretary of State for the Home Department, Judgement of the Court of 19 October 2004.

  11. COM(93) 702 Final, 21/12/93. See also Advocate General Leger's opinion in Case C-1214/94 Boukalfa v Federal Republic of Germany [1996] ECR I-2253.

  12. As the Advocate General stated, ‘the limitations in Article 8a itself concern the actual exercise but not the existence of the right’; Case C-85/96 at para 18.

  13. Case C-135/99 Ursula Elsen v Bundesversicherungsanstalt fur Angestellte, Judgment of the Court of 23 November 2000.

  14. [2000] OJ C364.

  15. COM (2001)257 Final; Brussels 23.5.2001.

  16. COM (2001) 257 final, para 1.3 of the explanatory memorandum.

  17. Ibid. Article 14.

  18. Ibid. Articles 26 and 21(1).

  19. Case C-184/99 [2001] ECR I-6913 at para. 52. The discussion here draws on my article ‘Ideas, Norms and European Citizenship: Explaining Institutional Change’, which appeared in The Modern Law Review, 68(2), 2005, 233–267.

  20. Grzelczyk, above n 84 at para 31. Under the Commission's proposed directive, on completion of a four-year educational course in an MS, the self-sufficiency conditions attached to the residence of students would cease to apply, thereby enabling former students to stay on in the host state and to receive social security entitlements on the same basis as nationals (Articles 7 and 8(4)).

  21. Case C-209/03, Bidar v London Borough of Ealing, Judgment of 15 March 2005.

  22. Case C-456/02 Trojani v CPAS [2004] ECR I-7573.

  23. C-138/02 Brian Francis Collins [2004] ECR I-2703. Similarly, the taking up of residence abroad is not a satisfactory indicator of a loss of connection with one's home Member State which is demonstrating its solidarity with the applicant by granting a civilian war benefit to him/her; Case C-192/05, K. Tas-Hagen and R.A. Tas, Judgement of the Court of 26 October 2006.

  24. Case C-224/98 Marie-Nathalie D'Hoop v Office national de l'emploi [2002] ECR I-6191.

  25. Compare also C-258/04 Ioannidis, Judgement of 15 September 2005. Ioannidis was denied a tideover allowance on the grounds that he had completed his secondary education in another Member State. See also Pusa, n. 55 below.

  26. Case C-60/00 M. Carpenter, Judgement of the Court of 11 July 2002, paras. 28–30.

  27. Ibid., at para 39.

  28. On this, see the provisions of the Council Regulations and directives on the free movement of employed and self-employed persons as well as Article 8 ECHR.

  29. Carpenter's deportation could not be justified on public order or safety grounds.

  30. Garrett, n 90 above.

  31. Case C-109/01 Secretary of State for the Home Department v Akrich [2001] ECR I-9607. Although the case involved a third-country national spouse of a Community national who was not lawfully resident in the UK before moving to another member state, the UK has operated a blanket requirement that dependent relatives of EU nationals must be lawful residents in a EU state before they are granted residence rights in another member state. In Jia, the Court was keen to distinguish Akrich and ruled that there was no requirement for Mrs Jia to have lawfully resided in another member state in order to be granted a long-term residence permit in Sweden as a dependent relative of a national of a member state. (32) Case C-1/05 Jia v Migrationverket [2007] ECR I-000.

  32. Case C-413/99 Baumbast, R v Secretary of State for the Home Department, Judgement of the Court of 17 September 2002.

  33. Case C-148/02 Garcia Avello v Etat Belge [2003] ECR I-11613.

  34. Case C-224/02 Heikki Antero Pusa v Osuuspankkien Keskinainen Vakuutusythio [2004] ECR I-5763.

  35. Case C-192/05 Tas-Hagen v Raadskamer WUBO van de Pensioen – en Uitkeringsgsrad [2006] ECR I-000, Case C-520/04 Turpeinen [2006] ECR I-000

  36. Directive 2004/38/EC, OJ 2004 L 158/77. I have discussed this in Kostakopoulou (2005) n 19 above.

  37. Articles 10 and 11 of Council Reg. 1612/68 were repealed with effect from 30 April 2006.

  38. The definition of a ‘family member’ includes a registered partner if the legislation of the host member state treats registered partnership as equivalent to marriage.

  39. Ibid., Article 14.

  40. However, egalitarian processes co-exist with the practice of exclusion of long-term resident third-country nationals from the personal scope of Union citizenship.

  41. Ibid., chapter VII, Article 39.

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  1. University of Manchester School of Law, University of Manchester, Williamson Building, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK

    Dora Kostakopoulou

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Kostakopoulou, D. The Evolution of European Union Citizenship. Eur Polit Sci 7, 285–295 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1057/eps.2008.24

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