Initially centred on economically active individuals within the internal market, the Maastricht Treaty’s introduction of Union citizenship extended the entitlement of intra-EU mobility to all EU citizens. This shifted the European Integration project’s aspiration from merely economic cooperation to broader social and political ambitions. For thirty years, Union citizenship’s history as a legal institution has been characterized by continuous evolution induced by the CJEU and legislative initiatives.First of all, Union citizenship is an institution explicitly delineated and established by primary law,Article 20 TFEU. The constitutional nature of the Union citizenship status with important implications for nationals of Member States has been reinforced by the CJEU in all post-Maastricht case law. Thus, the CJEU has contributed to the understanding of Union citizenship by distinguishing it from the logic of the internal market and recognising it as a ‘fundamental status’. On the core of Union citizenship lies, amongst others, the right of Union citizens to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States,Article 21 TFEU, raised to the status of a fundamental right in Article 45 Charter. The question that may arise is whether the intention was to establish a transnational citizenship that transcends the confines of market freedoms.In Rottmann, Tjebbes, and Wiener Landesregierung, the CJEU clarified that the Member States did not enjoy full discretion in the conferral/ withdrawal of nationality, thereby ensuring the protection of the EU status and rights attached to it provided supranational protection for individuals. In the same vein, the case law of the CJEU, specifically Coman and Pancharevo on the recognition of the personal status of EU citizens, has indicated an increased protection of citizens and their family members.Despite these developments, the CJEU has shown reluctance in some cases, e.g. concerning the social rights of Union citizens (FS judgement), the possession of nationality of a Member State and the status of European citizens, not only concerning its acquisition but also its retention (Prefet du Gers judgement). In this context, when it comes to ‘the fundamental status’ of Union citizenship, these limitations may have consequences on it and the Union’s integration project.Given the dynamic nature of Union citizenship, this paper aims to scrutinise the evolution of Union citizenship as a transnational status of social integration. The paper will be based on doctrinal legal research, relying on an analysis of the primary and secondary EU law and mainly on the case law of the CJEU on Union citizenship.

The Court of Justice of the European Union (the Court) is often hailed as a pioneer in integration through law. Scholarly views, however, diverge on the extent to which the Court can leave its mark on domestic policymaking and the judicial techniques it employs to do so. Bourgeoning literature alluding to the deconstitutionalisation of EU law in recent years, begs the question as to whether the Court can steer national migration policies through its case-law without strictly constitutionalising policy outcomes. The paper empirically examines the extent to which changes to the scope and substance of citizenship rights brought about through the analogous application of Directive 2004/38 triggered modifications in domestic migration policies and influenced mobility patterns within the EU. It does so by examining all cases in which the Court applies the provisions of Directive 2004/38 by analogy to situations falling outside its scope. The analysis explores the mechanics of the Court’s policymaking and traces policy changes at domestic level. The findings illustrate that the creation of rights in a deconstitutionalised manner, through the analogous application of Directive 2004/38, enables the Court to balance competing considerations and successfully generates judicial Europeanisation. Crucially the findings reveal that this legal formula positively influences the ability of certain groups, particularly free-movers returning to their Member State of origin, free-movers naturalised in the host Member State, and same-sex spouses of Union citizens, to move and reside freely within the EU.

This paper relates to work I am undertaking to develop a novel theory of integration, which I am calling ‘socio-civic entropy’. It is loosely founded upon principles derived from maths (Schelling’s work on “micromotives and macro behaviours”) and physics (thermo-dynamics) and seeks to explore the challenges facing social integration at national and supranational levels and to propose the basis for a new approach to integration that explains how integration can foster trust and, therefore, more stable societies. This is in direct opposition to traditional notions of belonging and identity, which are commonly placed within the confines of ‘citizenship’, usually nestled in the confines of the Nation State and the oppositions of ‘citizens’ and ‘other’ or ‘us’ and them’ identities. These ideas can be traced back to Aristotle’s conviction that humans are ‘political animals’, defined by their political, i.e., community, inclusion.

In the modern world, however, many people fall outside citizenship classification in their place of residence and social practice is not reflected comfortably with such clear delineations between ‘us’ and ‘them’. This issue is further muddied when a model of citizenry beyond nation state confines is introduced, such as has been the case over the past forty years in the European Union, since the creation of European, supranational, Citizenship.

The challenges are to build new forms of identity and inclusion that are likely to be workable: as such, transforming models of citizenship beyond those traditionally linked to nationality (and EU citizenship retains the nationality linkage, albeit operating at a different level) would appear to lie outside the Overton window. However, the ideas underpinning this proposal, i.e., to generate a theory based on the positive outcomes of greater social integration and the possibility of formulating a novel citizenship, one not confined by the narrow strictures of nationality-politics, arising from it are intended to broaden the scope of that window and to demonstrate that a model of socio-civic entropy will benefit individuals and societies together, forming stronger bonds and permitting greater opportunities to respond to future challenges.

This work is at an early stage and I am looking to explore it further, whilst taking on board constructive feedback.

The EU citizenship institution is under pressure, caused by various phenomena in the past ten years or so. The migration crisis, Brexit, and, as this paper will zone in on, the marketisation of citizenship, pose both practical and normative problems for the EU citizenship institution, mobility within the Union, and the European project overall. Embodying a naturalisation policy where national citizenship (and EU citizenship) is granted in exchange for investments or other financial contributions to the Member State, the marketisation of EU citizenship seems to sit uneasily with the very concept of EU citizenship. I argue in the paper that if we take EU citizenship seriously as a social and supranational (and post-national) form of political membership, the marketisation of EU citizenship presses us to consider, and revisit, a radical solution, which has for long been advanced by scholars in the literature: Decoupling EU citizenship from nationality. In this context, I argue that we should introduce a socially responsible connecting factor in the shape of a genuine link, that is, a 5-year residence criterion, implemented as a direct link between the individual prospective EU citizen and the EU, to attest a social membership of the Union.