When EU Citizens Become Foreigners

Although EU citizenship has matured as an institution, a combination of hope and caution ought to accompany the tale of its evolution. Contradictory processes of inclusion and greater equalisation and exclusion co-exist and that these would have to be taken into account, and addressed, in drawing nuanced accounts of its present state as well as agendas for future juridico-political reform. A focus on three key manifestations of state sovereignty, namely, the erasure of citizenship status, expulsion and the disappearance of individuals owing to extraordinary rendition, sheds light onto the edges of EU citizenship and the undesirable effects of untrammelled state power on the lives of individuals. Probing into the moments when EU citizens are treated as aliens or foreigners, and the troublesome ambiguities, tensions and limitations surrounding them, reveals the gaps in the protection of EU citizens and the constraints that stand in the way of change in the institutional scheme of things.

Dora Kostakopoulou is Professor of European Union Law, European Integration and Public Policy at Warwick Law School.  Formerly, she was Jean Monnet Professor in European Law and European Integration and Co-director of the Institute of Law, Economy and Global Governance at the University of Manchester (2005-2011) and Professor of European Union Law and Director of the Centre for European Law at the University of Southampton (2011-2012).