La citoyenneté européenne

Teresa Pullano presents a strong new perspective on European citizenship. Incorporating ideas from many philosophers such as Étienne Balibar and Michel Foucault, she illustrates how a reconceptualization of European citizenship is taking place, thanks to policies regarding the circulation of goods and persons within the European Union. Moreover, she explains how this new form of citizenship is altering relationships between the two other components of the modern political triptych (nationality and sovereignty).

Contrary to leading theories, this text analyses the impacts and effects on European residents of being a member of the European Union, in particular with regard to the law and practices of free circulation. Far from being an abstract notion, EU citizenship appears to create a quasi-state-like space defined by the rights it confers to its citizens, rather than its borders.

The very idea of citizenship, gradually detached from any territorial stability thanks to the EU's successive enlargements, is now transformed into a form of 'citizenship without a State' in a 'territory in evolution’.

As Jean-Marie Donegani suggests in his preface, this essay invites us to ‘rethink the very identity of democracy, no longer as the sovereignty of a people, but as a system of mediation and negotiation between subjects who are no longer defined by their adherence to a national-state framework but by their consent to belonging to a citizenship devoid of body or territory’.