The European Parliament and the Construction of the European Citizen

The European Parliament (EP) has a unique relationship with the European citizen. Indeed, the legitimacy of the EP largely depends on its claim to represent the European citizen in the EU’s transnational democracy. The EP is unique in this regard, as no other EU institution is so existentially dependent on the European citizen, as differentiated from the national citizen. Yet, the existence of a European citizen is not a given. Plenty of research has already investigated the legal and normative aspects of European citizenship, but little attention has been given to the EP’s role in constructing the European citizen it claims to represent. This study aims to fill that gap and assess the EP’s historical role as transnational ‘citizen-building’ actor. As such, it presents a study on the role of the EP in setting the frame and discourse on transnational citizenship in the period between the 1975 Tindemans Report, which expressed the ambition to build a “citizens’ Europe”, and the first European elections in 1979, which was believed would turn the EU into a genuine representative democracy. I find that, while fundamentally transnational in nature, the EP has been crucial in adding the political aspect of European citizenship to a concept that was primarily seen in economic terms, that is, EU citizens as (cross-border) workers and consumers.