The Rise and Rise of EU Citizenship

Any individual holding the nationality of an EU Member State is ascribed EU Citizenship. This was first determined in the 1992 Maastricht Treaty and further elaborated upon in the Lisbon Treaty and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. Since the adoption of the Lisbon Treaty, many developments in EU citizenship have taken place that enforce and clarify a citizen’s rights. The 2010 First EU Citizen Report, published by the European Commission, identified a number of obstacles that EU citizens face with regard to their rights in everyday life. A set of concrete actions to deal with these obstacles are mentioned by the author. In May 2013 there was a second report to view the progress. The Commission then announced six areas to strengthen citizens’ rights. At the same time, a report on the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights was published with a detailed overview of the implementation of these rights in the EU in 2012. Fundamental rights will further be enhanced with the EU’s accession to the European Convention of Human Rights. The 2013 EU Citizen Report was intended to be used in the European Year of Citizens 2013, which consisted of a range of activities and events. This year was aimed to give EU citizens more insight into their rights and responsibilities and to prepare them for the 2014 elections. The author concludes by mentioning the broadening and deepening of EU citizenship over the past 20 years. This growth can be viewed both quantitatively in the amount of citizen’s rights and qualitatively in the range of these rights. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.