Earned Citizenship: Understanding Union Citizenship Through its Scope

Abstract

In this contribution I will argue that we are witnessing a reactionary phase in the Court’s interpretation of the citizenship provisions which not only reaffirms the migration paradigm, but also contracts the scope of application of Article 20(1) TFEU, as well as imposing additional criteria for the enjoyment of citizenship rights to those provided for in Directive 2004/38. In turn, this development in the case law has important repercussions on the way we think about Union citizenship – in particular, the dichotomy status/beneficiary, together with the additional requirements imposed by the Court and the reallocation of responsibility of vulnerable citizens across national boundaries, not only reduce the relevance of Union citizenship, but transform it from a fundamental status to a mere additional one, so that the significance of Union citizenship is much reduced. Whilst this turn in the case law can be defended from a hermeneutic perspective, it has important consequences. First, it restates the primacy of the market citizen; secondly, and more importantly, Union citizenship far from being a uniting concept becomes a vehicle for further discrimination. In this writer’s perspective it becomes near impossible to defend the concept of Union citizenship so interpreted: no citizenship at all is preferable to such an unequal citizenship.