Citizenship: Contrasting Dynamics at the Interface of Integration and Constitutionalism

This chapter explores the complex tapestry of citizenship in the European Union context, and examines how discourses of citizenship illuminate both the nature of European integration and the process of gradual constitutionalization. The intention is to re-evaluate the role played by citizenship in the evolving processes of Union polity-formation, and the connection between citizenship and the various dynamics of constitution-making. The chapter has three substantive sections which examine the complex and dynamic relationship between citizenship of the Union, the free movement dynamics underpinning EU law, and concepts of citizenship in a wider constitutional context. The chapter finds that there is a tension between citizenship of the Union, as part of the EU’s ‘old’ incremental constitutionalism based on the constitutionalization of the existing Treaties, and citizenship in the Union, where the possibilities of a ʼnew’ constitutionalism based on renewed constitutional documents have yet to be fully realized.