EU Citizenship and the Market

17 June 2011

About the project

This one-day conference is the closing element of a six-month project, which aimed to examine rights and identities of European citizens by engaging with European communities resident in London.

Even though every citizen of an EU member state is today also an EU citizen, the bulk of rights that come with this status are still economic in nature: they are based on the free movement of persons, goods, services and capital across the Community's internal market. These may enhance our personal liberty, allow us to coordinate and work freely with each other, and give us the opportunity to exert pressure and even seek rights of redress. However, such a 'market citizenship' is also considered by some as only a passive and 'thin' form of citizenship, and one that might even be undermining social solidarity.

At the same time, it may well be argued that it is precisely these economic rights, which have empowered citizens to move within the EU and settle in another member state. An alternative reading might thus see these rights as a potential basis for a postnational kind of citizenship, in which rights and perhaps, ultimately, solidarity, are disassociated from national and territorially circumscribed membership of a state.

Our project will seek to discuss precisely this relation between European citizenship and the market. To what extent is citizenship of the Union going beyond the market today? Or is it in fact coupled increasingly firmly to it?  And if so, is that necessarily a bad thing? Is talk of 'mere' market citizenship misguided if it provides not only real, tangible benefits for many citizens, but also leads them to identify more closely with their fellow Europeans?

The objective is to discuss, learn and convey information about how exactly European citizens use their market-related rights when they move to, or do business with, another member state of the Union, and how this usage affects in practice their sense of identity and solidarity.

Format

The project consists of three parts.

The first two were conversation rounds with focus groups from European communities living in London; they took place on 17 February and 17 March at 5.30pm on the UCL Campus. Each focus group comprised 9 members of the public. In each case, an academic lead gave a brief, informative introduction to the topic and the policy implications. This was followed by a discussion with the group on their awareness of these issues, their experiences of and their critical engagement with them.

The project is rounded off by this one-day conference on 17 June with invited academics and policy-makers.

A final report highlighting the normative, legal and policy implications of the discussions will be published and made available to the participating institutions and the public.

Results

The overall objective is to run a project that will interest - and be of benefit to - the public, academics,and policy-makers alike. It will therefore:

• Provide information to British and non-British European citizens resident in London as to their rights as citizens of the Union;
• Gain information, in a focus-group discussion with these groups, on their awareness of these rights, their practical use of them, and their self-identification, if at all, as European citizens;
• Transmit the results of the focus groups to a group of academic and policy experts
• Draft a working paper/report that will be submitted to the European Commission Representation in London and distributed widely.

This project is funded under the European Commission Representation's call for proposals targeted at UK university departments and think tanks, which were invited to draw on their policy expertise and networking capacity to promote academic and public debate in their local communities.

For further information please contact us.

Programme