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ABSTRACT
The year 2013 was officially declared the European Year of Citizens (EYC) in the European Union (EU). Through this event, the European Commission (EC) reiterates a ‘virtuous circle’ – between citizenship, free movement and a sense of belonging – able to bring citizens closer to the EU. This contribution shows how this ‘virtuous circle’ tends to translate into a ‘tunnel vision’ that reduces citizenship to free movement. Through the analysis of EC discourses, of the literature on ‘movers’ and ‘stayers’, and of focus groups with young people from Brussels, we suggest to expand the understanding of free movement and its effects. Overall, this contribution proposes to re-evaluate the scope of the ‘virtuous circle’ by considering that the ‘stayers’ are also EU citizens, that free movement is not indisputably an attractive right, and that the movers do not unquestionably feel attached to the EU as a result of their mobility.
Acknowledgements
We wish to thank Rocco Bellanova, Florence Delmotte, Virginie Van Ingelgom and the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable feedback. This contribution was first presented at the European Union Studies Association (EUSA) Conference in March 2015 in Boston.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Ludivine Damay is a postdoctoral researcher and a lecturer of political sociology at the Institute for European Studies and at the CReSPo Political Science Research Centre (Université Saint-Louis − Bruxelles).
Heidi Mercenier is a PhD candidate at the Institute for European Studies (and at the CReSPo Political Science Research Centre Université Saint-Louis − Bruxelles). At the time of submitting this contribution, she was also guest researcher at the ARENA Centre for European Studies (University of Oslo).
Notes
1. This fieldwork is part of a PhD research conducted under the Concerted Research Action (ARC – Belgian research programme) entitled ‘Why regulate? Regulation, deregulation and the legitimacy of the EU: a legal and political analysis.’
2. It is outside the scope of this contribution to describe the influence of the European Court of Justice on the evolution of citizenship, but it has strongly contributed to challenge this vision by stating in 2001; for instance, that EU citizenship is ‘destined to be the fundamental status of nationals of the member state’ (C-184/99 Grzelczyk (2001) at 31). It also disputed the economic requirement in the host members state (Kostakopoulou Citation2005) and, in other case laws, the cross-border condition for the application of EU law (C-135/08 Rottman [2010]). However, the criticized ‘activism’ of the Court (see Dougan Citation2006) has recently been moderated, notably concerning access to social benefits (C-333/13 Dano [2014]; C-67/14 Alimanovic [2015]).
3. In 2014, voter turnout at the EU parliamentary elections was 42.61 per cent, slightly lower than in 2009 (42.97 per cent). Additionally, the number of mobile EU citizens that registered to vote in their host country was globally low: from 0.4 per cent of all mobile EU citizens who reside in the Czech Republic to 5.4 per cent in Germany and 22.2 per cent in Ireland (EC 2015).
4. Seven slogans on the nine used on these posters imply to be in a cross border context. One of them focuses on consumer rights and the last one is centred on worker rights.
5. We follow the definition of the notion of ‘practice’ proposed by Bueger and Gadinger (2014: 4). The analysis of practices refers to the observation of actors’ behaviours, but also to the analysis of their discourses.
6. The discussions took place in French. The names of the participants have been changed in the transcriptions and in the article, but we have tried to keep the origin of each name.
7. A set of six questions was asked in each group. Two questions were first put to the participants relative to the identification of collective problems in society and of the people able to solve these problems. Participants were then asked in the third question to comment on different political levels on the basis of photos representing various political institutions. The fourth question targeted the EU level directly. The two last questions were focused on the identification of ‘communities’ young people feel a part of.
8. The explanations necessary to grasp the quotes are italicised and in round brackets and the words that were not uttered by participants but that are useful to understand the conversation are in square brackets.