From European migrants to European citizens: An unfinished process

Abstract

The present article explores the Europeans` change of status, from economic migrants to European citizens. In the beginning, Europeans were mainly seen as economic migrants empowered by law to freely move and reside within the territory of the European Community. The subsequent advancements within the European project and the European political context have consolidated the status of European migrants and have acknowledged them as members of a political community. Whereas this process can be seen as a sign of constitutionalism emerging within the European system (Simon, 2000), we can still wonder if the European citizenship is a real issue or merely a tool used by the adepts of the political union to build their arguments (Labayle, 1992). Whatever the answer, the European citizenship has been chosen as the appropriate argument to strengthen the sense of belonging to the European Union and, at the same time, to reinforce its legitimacy. The European citizenship replaces the political dimension associated with the notion of citizenship (as stated by the classical theory) with an economic dimension; this breaks the foundation of our identity, as defined by the Nation State (Deloye, 2004). If the European perspective goes beyond the traditional approach which states that identities are organized around the State, the question is what type of new identification the European Union puts in place and how could the European citizenship become a status that allows for the separation between civil belonging and other forms of social affiliation (Leca, 1996). This article describes the gradual conversion of a heterogeneous community of European economic migrants into a more-or-less homogeneous community of European citizens. It claims that, despite the consecration of the concept of European citizenship, the social ties that should underpin it and transform it into a reality are slow to emerge. The paper also presents some possible approaches that could push forward the debate and, why not, lead to a bottom-up transformation carried by those European migrants who need or want to see themselves first and foremost as European citizens.