EUROPEAN UNION CITIZENSHIP

European Union Citizenship

European Union Citizenship

The Road To The Creation Of European Citizenship

The right of free movement of persons within the territory of the Community was introduced in the Treaty establishing the EEC, signed in Rome in 1957. This movement did not appear linked to any concept of citizenship but was closely linked to the performance of economic activity (paid employment, independent activity or services.) Consequently, the recognized right of residence for workers and their families in relation to the right to pursue a job in another member country of the EEC.

Although the Summit of Heads of State and Government held in Paris in 1974 and has raised the need to recognize "special rights" to nationals of member states of the then European Economic Community, the first occasion on which we can trace In order to transcend a mere common market with the aim of creating a community of citizens is found in so-called Tindemans Report in 1976. (Beetham, 2008)

A second step is the call by the Act of September 20, 1976, the first elections to the European Parliament by universal suffrage. For very limited powers have yet the parliament for the first time you see one of the essential elements of citizenship: democratic participation.

Later, after the European Council held in Fontainebleau (France) in 1984, created a committee "Citizens' Europe", chaired by Italian MEP Adonnino, which passed a series of timid proposals in relation to the establishment of European citizenship. (Castles & Davidson, 2000)

More daring was the Draft Treaty on European Union, adopted by the European Parliament in February 1984 and presented by MEP Altiero Spinelli (Spinelli Project). Its article 3 reads as follows:

"The citizens of the Member States are, for this reason, citizens of the Union. (...) The EU citizens participate in political life in the same manner prescribed under the present Treaty, enjoy the rights they are recognized by the law of the Union shall conform to the same standards. "

Despite its restraint, the Single European Act (1986) just picked up any project proposals Spinelli, although established, and that is fundamental, the objective of European political union. So, a few years later, he convened two Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) to reform the Treaties. One of them focused on the Economic and Monetary Union , the other exclusively on political union. (Fossum & Schlesinger, 2007)

The European Council of Rome, in October 1990 to mark the guidelines of the CIGs, and introduced the notion of European citizenship as an essential element of the reform of the Treaties and with characteristics and similar rights to those who subsequently collected in the European Union Treaty or Maastricht.

It was the Spanish delegation that first presented to the IGC in October 1990, an articulate and reasoned text on European citizenship. After several give and take, with clear and explicit support of the European Parliament which adopted two resolutions in 1991 in their favor, finally, the Treaty on European Union came to institutionalize citizenship. (Kymlicka, 1995)

"A citizen of the Union any person having the nationality a ...