EU: The supermarket of citizenship and European democracy, by Guido Montani

Europe’s response to the pandemic comes in the form of a major undertaking, the Next Generation EU recovery plan, based on European public debt and new own resources and haggled out at the European Council meeting this month.

The commitment to offering young people a future shows that European solidarity exists. But various rarely-discussed phenomena are gradually eroding it—including that European citizenship is for sale.

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The supermarket of citizenship and European democracy – Guido Montani

Brexit: Europe’s top negotiator wants to offer Brits EU citizenship as individuals after Brexit — RT UK

Brexit negotiators want to offer Brits the chance to remain as individual EU citizens, the European Parliament’s chief negotiator, Guy Verhofstadt, has confirmed.

The proposal revealed by The Independent would see Brits offered “associate citizenship,” leaving them free to move, live, and work throughout the EU, as well as vote in European Parliament elections.

Verhofstadt, who has been appointed by the EU to lead negotiations with the British government, said that the “very important” proposal would be in his negotiating mandate, as it has “captured the imagination and hopes” of many Brits who want to retain their rights as EU citizens.

Depending on how EU negotiators approach the issue, the idea will likely need to be approved by the British government.

Verhofstadt and the European Parliament’s Committee on constitutional affairs are drawing up a report that will propose long-term changes to the EU’s structure.

Liberal MP Charles Goerens proposed that a measure allowing Brits to keep their EU citizenship as individuals be included in the report, but it will now bypass that process and be fast-tracked to move forward on its own.

In its original form, the provision would offer: “European associate citizenship for those who feel and wish to be part of the European project but are nationals of a former Member State; offers these associate citizens the rights of freedom of movement and to reside on its territory as well as being represented in the Parliament through a vote in the European elections on the European lists.”

Read more: Europe’s top negotiator wants to offer Brits EU citizenship as individuals after Brexit — RT UK

What does it mean to be a dual citizen?

In recent years in the Netherlands two state secretaries have come under fire for having double citizenship. The right-wing PVV argued that a member of cabinet with two passports ‘therefore’ had two potentially conflicting loyalties.

In their view, this was not reconcilable with the exclusive loyalty a cabinet member should have towards his or her own government. The first state secretary had Dutch and Turkish citizenship and the second one was Dutch-Swedish. Some people argued there was a difference between those two cases since Sweden is a member of the EU and Turkey isn’t.

In the end, neither case was perceived as a large enough problem to warrant more than a short-lived news item, and both state secretaries were allowed to remain in office.

According to the Lisbon Treaty, a ‘citizen of the Union’ every person holding the nationality of an EU Member State shall be a citizen of the Union.
This ‘Union citizenship’ shall be additional to and not replace national citizenship.

For more: What does it mean to be a dual citizen? - The Local