The Promise of European Union Citizenship

European Union citizenship was institutionalized to establish a kind of European demos as a basis for European Union democracy. It should provide European citizens with a common identity as Europeans and intra-EU-migrants with the opportunity to participate in the politics of their country of residence. Thus European Union citizenship should promote political participation via two different mechanisms: on the one hand it should increase individual participation, insofar as it establishes the claim of migrants to be citizens on equal footing with nationals of the country of residence (legitimation mechanism). On the other hand it fosters political participation in giving certain definite rights to participate to EU-migrants (rights mechanism). Thus, via these two mechanisms, EU citizenship should not only have an impact on institutionalized participation (via the rights mechanism) but also on non-institutionalized participation (via the legitimation mechanism).

In this paper we analyze the success of EU citizenship with respect to its promotion of political participation. To study this question empirically, we compare EU-migrants in an EU-country (Netherlands) with those in a European non-EU-country (Switzerland). We expect differences in the political participation of EU-migrants between the two countries, both with respect to institutionalized and non-institutionalized political participation. We compare these differences to the differences in political participation between the citizens of the Netherlands and Switzerland. The difference in the participation rate of EU migrants in the two countries under study should be bigger if EU citizenship is assumed to have an impact on political participation rates.