Pretending There is No Union: Non-Derivative Quasi-Citizenship Rights of Third-Country Nationals in the EU

Abstract

The enjoyment of some rights by third-country nationals in the EU is not dependent on the primary beneficiary of rights (be it a person or a company), thereby connecting the third-country nationals with the law of the Union directly, without any proxis. Moreover, in essence some of such rights are remarkably similar to the rights that EU citizens enjoy. Such directly enjoyable quasi-EU citizenship rights and their holders – many a category of third country nationals – constitute the key focus of this contribution, which aspires to walk through all the main statuses of third country nationals in the EU enjoying direct – as opposed to derivative – quasi-citizenship rights in the Union. Concluding such overview three significant interrelated problems with the way how third country nationals are treated in the EU are outlined:1. EU migration regulation assumes the denial of the legal political reality of the Union;2. EU migration regulation bars rationality from being taken into account when third country nationals’ rights are at stake;3. EU migration regulation sends a problematic signal that the goals and principles of the Union can be consistently ignored.We argue that such treatment of the legal-political reality of the European integration project is most unhelpful and has to be changed.