Willem Maas

Migrants, states, and EU citizenship's unfulfilled promise

A constant aim of EU citizenship, and indeed the entire project of European integration, has always been to lower barriers and create a common space. If the complete elimination of national borders remains elusive, their importance has been diminished in striking ways by the development of EU citizenship and the ban against nationality based discrimination. Yet the barriers to free movement have been lowered in differential ways. Most citizens of EU member states now enjoy residence, employment and other rights throughout Europe. The extension of some rights to some categories of citizens of some new member states is admittedly sometimes subject to transition periods, but these expire. By contrast, third country nationals – individuals who do not hold citizenship of one of the member states, even though they may have resided for many years, or even been born in Europe – remain largely excluded from the benefits of EU citizenship. Various initiatives over the years have opened up limited rights for third country nationals. But the difficulty of enacting these rights, and current moves to more restrictive immigration and naturalization policies, highlight the continuing exclusivity of EU citizenship: immigrants migrate to national polities, and they become European only by virtue of incorporation into national states. This means that EU citizenships transformative potential remains unrealized.

The Genesis of European Rights

Supranational rights in Europe originated in the ECSC free movement provisions. In a political compromise, these provisions were included at the insistence of the Italian delegation, although the other Member States delayed in implementing them. Examining the genesis of European rights recasts EU citizenship from a contemporary phenomenon dating only from the Maastricht Treaty to the most recent expression of the same tensions and compromises that have characterized the entire history of European integration.

Free Movement and Discrimination: Evidence from Europe, the United States, and Canada

Abstract This article surveys some general lessons to be drawn from the tension between the promise of citizenship to deliver equality and the particularistic drive to maintain diversity. Democratic states tend to guarantee free movement within their territory to all citizens, as a core right of citizenship. Similarly, the European Union guarantees (as the core right of EU citizenship) the right to live and the right to work anywhere within EU territory to EU citizens and members of their families. Such rights reflect the project of equality and undifferentiated individual rights for all who have the status of citizen. But they are not uncontested. Within the EU, several member states propose to reintroduce border controls and to restrict access for EU citizens who claim social assistance. Similar tensions and attempts to discourage freedom of movement also exist in other political systems, and the article gives examples from the United States and Canada. Within democratic states, particularly federal ones and others where decentralized jurisdictions are responsible for social welfare provision, it thus appears that some citizens can be more equal than others. Principles such as benefit portability, prohibition of residence requirements for access to programs or rights, and mutual recognition of qualifications and credentials facilitate the free flow of people within states and reflect the attempt to eliminate internal borders. Within the growing field of migration studies, most research focuses on international migration, movement between states, involving international borders. But migration across jurisdictional boundaries within states is at least as important as international migration. Within the European Union, free movement often means changing residence across jurisdictional boundaries within a political system with a common citizenship, even though EU citizenship is not traditional national citizenship. The EU is thus a good test of the tension between the equality promised by common citizenship and the diversity institutionalized by borders.

Immigrant integration, gender, and citizenship in the Dutch Republic

Most contemporary studies of immigrant integration take place in the context of stable, strong, and relatively centralized states able to craft policies and see them enacted. In contrast, this article considers immigrant integration in an emerging state – the early Dutch Republic, a political entity whose legitimacy was confirmed only later with the Peace of Westphalia, the treaty that arguably established the institution of state sovereignty. A confederation of 7 of the 17 Netherlandic provinces, the boundaries of the new republic were unsettled and a distinct national consciousness was lacking. But despite its tenuous early existence, the Dutch Republic became a major destination for immigrants. The reconquest of Antwerp by the Spanish sent migrants from the southern provinces, mainly Protestants whose numbers would grow to approximately one-tenth the new republics population. They were joined by Jews from Portugal and elsewhere and religious and economic migrants chiefly from Germany, Scotland, and Scandinavia and, later, Huguenots from France. The immigrants settled mainly in the cities; the Dutch Republic overtook northern Italy as the most urbanized region in Europe, with immigrants comprising half the population of many cities. A multivalent inquiry that includes gender is critical for understanding immigrant integration in the Dutch Republic. I argue that attracting and integrating immigrants simultaneously ushered in the Dutch “Golden Age” and helped create the (nation-)state.

Unauthorized Migration and the Politics of Regularization, Legalization, and Amnesty

Unauthorized migration is a major component of labour migration and a function of the opportunities for regular migration.1 Facing the choice between ignoring the underground economy or attempting to control it, states constantly adjust their policies regarding residence and employment rights. As industrialized state’s reduced legal avenues of labour migration in the 1970s, the international response generally focused on humanitarian concerns and the rights of workers, portraying unauthorized migrants as victims rather than law-breakers or criminals. Nevertheless, northern European states began sharpening their administrative controls. The introduction and expansion of the Schengen system in 1985, which removed border controls between various European states, resulted in enhanced cooperation regarding control of the common external border as well as changes in the administration of third country nationals, including unauthorized migrants. Driven by a combination of humanitarian concerns, labour market needs, and a relative lack of administrative capacity compared with northern European states (which had earlier pursued similar policies), southern European states such as Spain, Italy, Greece, and Portugal enacted a series of large-scale immigration amnesties and regularization campaigns. These programmes prompted arguments that legalization should not be regarded as a way of managing migration flows but should be confined to exceptional situations. This chapter explores the political response to unauthorized migration, focusing on the shifting legality of migration over time and paying particular attention to the case of Spain within the context of southern European states attempting to balance

Boundaries of political community in Europe, the US, and Canada

Abstract European Union citizenship, a central achievement of European integration, reconfigures the meaning of boundaries within Europe by superimposing a new political community over already-existing member state political communities. In this way, Europe becomes comparable to federal states such as the United States and Canada, which are usually viewed in terms of singular citizenship but which can be better understood through the lens of overlapping jurisdiction and multilevel citizenship. Case studies of the free movement of students and workers show that all governments must balance the desire for equal citizenship with demands for ‘own polity first.’ Migration between US states or Canadian provinces raises worries about social dumping analogous to those raised by Euroskeptics concerned about EU free movement. Yet despite significant internal variation, overarching welfare programs assuage these worries about the ability of governments to control the boundaries of political community, and should be considered for Europe.

Free movement and the difference that citizenship makes

Free movement in Europe differs from arrangements in other regional integration efforts because of the introduction of individual rights at the European level, later captured under the legal umbrella of European Union citizenship. In place of previous bilateral and ad hoc arrangements to manage migration between their states, Europe’s political leaders created a new constitutional category: the European citizen, with rights that EU member states cannot infringe except under limited circumstances. The development of European rights means that free movement in Europe can be compared with internal free movement in other multilevel political systems, such as federal states, demonstrating the similar political logics at work in dissimilar contexts. One of the core values of shared citizenship is a project of equal political status, which is not always compatible with retaining local particularity. This is why central authorities in democratic systems almost invariably work to lower internal borders and boundaries, while local authorities often work to retain them, setting up potential conflicts.