European Citizenship Under Stress

European citizenship is facing numerous challenges, including fundamental rights and social justice considerations. These get amplified in the context of Brexit and the general rise of populism in Europe today. This book takes a representative selection of these challenges, which raise a multitude of highly complex issues, as an invitation to provide a critical appraisal of the current state of the EU legal framework surrounding EU citizenship. The contributions are grouped in four parts, dealing with constitutional developments posing challenges to EU citizenship; the limits of the free movement paradigm in the context of EU citizenship; EU citizenship beyond free movement; and, lastly, EU citizenship in the context of the outside world, including Brexit, the EEA and Eurasian Economic Union.

European citizenship is facing numerous challenges, including fundamental rights and social justice considerations. These get amplified in the context of Brexit and the general rise of populism in Europe today. This book takes a representative selection of these challenges, which raise a multitude of highly complex issues, as an invitation to provide a critical appraisal of the current state of the EU legal framework surrounding EU citizenship. The contributions are grouped in four parts, dealing with constitutional developments posing challenges to EU citizenship; the limits of the free movement paradigm in the context of EU citizenship; EU citizenship beyond free movement; and, lastly, EU citizenship in the context of the outside world, including Brexit, the EEA and Eurasian Economic Union.

EU citizenship and Free Movement Rights examines how EU citizenship reconstructs in unexpected ways what citizenship as a status means and stands for in relation to family reunification, social rights, expulsion and discusses the effects of Brexit for EU citizens.

This book provides a critique of the way in which European citizenship is imagined and practiced. Setting their analysis in its full historical context, the authors challenge preconceived ideas about European citizenship on the basis of a detailed reconstruction of political, social and economic practice. In particular, they show the extent to which the elimination of formal internal borders within Europe has come hand in glove with the emergence of new socio-economic boundaries and the hardening of external borders. The book concludes with a number of concrete proposals to forge a genuinely post-national form of membership.

This book identifies, analyses and compares a variety of possible ‘barriers’ to the exercise of European citizenship and discusses ways to move beyond these barriers. It contributes in a multi-disciplinary way to a highly topical issue and offers new perspectives on EU citizenship in the sense that it critically analyses concepts of citizenship, the way EU citizenship is politically, legally and socially institutionalized, and elaborates alternatives to the current paths of realizing EU citizenship.

European Union citizenship is increasingly relevant in the context of both the refugee crisis and Brexit, yet the issue of citizenship is neither new nor unique to the EU. Using historical, political and sociological perspectives, the authors explore varied experiences of combining multiple identities into a single sense of citizenship. Cases are taken from Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Spain, Switzerland and Turkey. These examples of communities being successfully incorporated into one entity are exceptionally useful for addressing the challenges facing the EU today.

'In this important contribution to the analysis and construction of European Union citizenship, Charlotte O'Brien provides her characteristic blend of rigorous legal scholarship and compelling social vision. She identifies challenging questions about the relationship between justice and vulnerability that should concern the shaping of law at all levels of governance.' Professor Niamh Nic Shuibhne, University of Edinburgh 'Piercing the veil of well-known proclamations of “equality” and “non-discrimination”, in this intimate portrait of Union law O'Brien sounds a sobering wake up call. The Union, to the genuine surprise of some converted, is a powerful actor of injustice, failing the vulnerable Europeans at many a turn, blinded by its own proclaimed righteousness and goodness to be aware of the plight of those it lets down. The sooner we dispel the oxymoronic myth of a “market citizen” as a necessary tool of the uniquely benevolent EU internal market project, the sooner the process of healing the Union turning its back on the majority of Europeans can begin. This book is an important part of this beginning.' Professor Dimitry Kochenov, University of Groningen 'Doctrinal mastery. Intellectual rigour. Conceptual depth. Empirical enrichment. O'Brien's landmark text offers its readers all of these qualities. But she also writes with a clarity and honesty of purpose that is an inspiration to her readers. Particularly at a time when certain political actors seek to vilify “expertise”, Unity in Adversity is a testament to the value of independent and critical academic research.' Professor Michael Dougan, University of Liverpool The EU is at a crossroads of constitution and conscience. Unity in Adversity argues that EU market citizenship is incompatible with a pursuit of social justice, because it contributes to the social exclusion of women and children, promotes a class-based conception of rights, and tolerates in-work poverty. The limitations of EU citizenship are clearest when EU nationals engage with national welfare systems, but this experience has been neglected in EU legal research. Unity in Adversity draws upon the ground-breaking EU Rights Project, working first hand with EU nationals in the UK, providing advice and advocacy, and giving ethnographic insight into the process of navigating EU and UK welfare law. Its study of EU law in action is a radical new approach, and the case studies illustrate the political, legal and administrative obstacles to justice faced by EU nationals. Taken together, the strands demonstrate that 'equal treatment' for EU nationals is an illusion. The UK's welfare reforms directed at EU nationals are analysed as a programme of declaratory discrimination, and in light of the subsequent referendum, should be treated as a cautionary tale – both to the EU, to take social justice seriously, and to other Member States, to steer away from xenophobic law-making. Shortlisted for the 2018 BBC Thinking Allowed Award for Ethnography. Winner of the 2019 Hart-SLSA Book Prize.

This Research Handbook provides a panoramic guide to the study and research of EU citizenship and its development within a challenging environment characterised by restrictive access to social benefits, Brexit, Euroscepticism and Covid-19. It combines theoretical perspectives with analyses of both the existing and future rights, duties and social protection that EU citizens ought to enjoy in a democratic and principled European Union.

Kochenov's definitive collection examines the under-utilised potential of EU citizenship, proposing and defending its position as a systemic element of EU law endowed with foundational importance. Leading experts in EU constitutional law scrutinise the internal dynamics in the triad of EU citizenship, citizenship rights and the resulting vertical delimitation of powers in Europe, analysing the far-reaching constitutional implications. Linking the constitutional question of federalism and citizenship, the volume establishes an innovative new framework where these rights become agents and rationales of European integration and legal change, located beyond the context of the internal market and free movement. It maps the role of citizenship in this shifting landscape, outlining key options for a Europe of the future.

This book maps out, from a variety of theoretical standpoints, the challenges generated by European integration and EU citizenship for community membership, belonging and polity-making beyond the state. It does so by focusing on three main issues of relevance for how EU citizenship has developed and its capacity to challenge state sovereignty and authority as the main loci of creating and delivering rights and protection. First, it looks at the relationship between citizenship of the Union and European identity and assesses how immigration and access to nationality in the Member States impact on the development of a common European identity. Secondly, it discusses how the idea of solidarity interacts with the boundaries of EU citizenship as constructed by the entitlement and capacity of mobile citizens to enjoy equality and social rights as EU citizens. Thirdly, the book engages with issues of EU citizenship and equality as the building blocks of the EU project. By engaging with these themes, this volume provides a topical and comprehensive account of the present and future development of Union citizenship and studies the collisions between the realisation of its constructive potential and Member State autonomy.