EU Citizenship Should Speak Both to the Mobile and the Non-Mobile European

Abstract

Maurizio Ferrera tables a catalogue of proposals to add a social dimension and ‘some duty’ to EU citizenship. As always, his search for incremental solutions that reconcile feasibility and vision is challenging. However, I have some sympathy with Joppke’s reaction that one cannot dispense with a more fundamental debate on free movement, on which public opinion is deeply divided. Ferrera’s proposals may be relatively peripheral to settling that fundamental debate. On the other hand, Joppke’s insistence that EU citizenship is duty-free, because it is liberal, does not yield a justification for free movement and non-discrimination of mobile Europeans. I believe it is possible to justify free movement in a framework of principles that speak both to the mobile and the non-mobile European, whereby openness is embedded in principles of reciprocity. Reciprocity bridges rights and obligations.