European Citizenship – Meanings and Practices of an (Almost Failed) Democratic Project

Citizenship is a key concept to understand what constitutes the demos but also how the demos constitutes itself and within which limits. Currently there are many doubts on what being a European citizen actually means and what kind of rights and duties it entails. These doubts reflect a more profound problem, namely, the fact that in the course of constructing a European demos, democracy becomes suspended and is currently endangered by the perversity of mixing the political with the economic and financial orders. This paper aims at exploring the limits and expectations of ‘European citizenship’, normatively and practically speaking. In order to do so I define three moments of analysis: first, I try to answer a question: what kind of citizenship do we find today in Europe? My answer is supported by a convergence (not total) between different political spaces where the citizens actually live – the nation-state and the supra-national entity of ‘Europe’. The European citizen is thus suspended between a national identity and an imaginary identity still under construction. Second, I explore the kind of relationship that is established between the individual citizen and the sovereign nation. More precisely, I explore the set of democratic premises upon which the European project is built and which lies on the essential assumption that there is an actual relationship between representatives and represented from which rights and duties are derived. My goal is to show how this relationship is challenged and endangered by a European order. Finally, I look into some ways in which granting a European citizenship (with specific rights) entails the loss of specific political rights, which are a necessary condition for a national democratic government. More precisely, I will analyze the impact and direct repercussions of ‘the right of mobility’ has in citizens’ lives.