Mobility Versus Solidarity? Challenges to EU Citizenship

At the core of EU citizenship is a right to mobility. However, under conditions of rising inequality within Europe – among citizens, regions as well as member states – freedom of movement has recently been highly politicized. With a polarisation of labour markets and certain strata of the population being stuck in unqualified jobs with few possibilities to move ahead, the EU’s legitimatory narrative of mobility, prosperity and integration might have little impact upon those people’s perspectives and frames of mind. For them EU citizenship has so far not had much to offer. In its current shape EU citizenship is rather thin regarding the protection of individual rights beyond market access and rather hollow regarding effective political influence. Nevertheless, its existence has triggered a transformative dynamic. This transformative dynamic lies in opening up national boundaries and gradually shifting the basis of access to membership rights. Nevertheless, solidarity is empirically and normatively still mainly associated with the national welfare state. For a transnational citizenship regime such as the EU this raises considerable challenges. Due to the complementary character of EU citizenship mobility and solidarity are necessarily in a conflictual relation. The paper discusses arguments for further decoupling EU citizenship rights from citizenship rights in particular member states as a presupposition for strengthening the social dimension of European citizenship. It asks in how far creating a more substantive status, beyond mobility rights and the “non-discrimination principle”, could provide the means of moving towards a minimum threshold of pan-European social rights. This is of course the most controversial aspect of further integration, particularly since it affects the question of cooperation and solidarity levels between Eurozone and all other EU member states. What would it take to set free the unifying dynamic that a comprehensive citizenship status could stimulate?