The overarching objective of this article is to map and analyse the European Union's discourse of ‘European citizenship’ as it has evolved since the early 1970s. It focuses on how this discourse on citizenship unfolds in the matters of social citizenship rights, ethnic relations, immigration, and the interrelated EU project of forming ‘European identity’. Through an analysis of mainly European Commission documents, a critical perspective of the definitions and meanings which the EU attaches ‘European citizenship’ is developed. The article argues that in conjunction with the Community's adoption of a neoliberal-leaning agenda in the 1980s, the EU has been moving towards a de-socialized and increasingly ethno-cultural understanding of citizenship and identity. Through this ethno-cultural articulation, it is argued, ‘European citizenship’ comes to work excluding towards the Union's non-white and non-Christian populations. In widening the scope of the analysis, the final sections discuss the EU's citizenship discourse in the context of other culturalizing discourses on ‘Europe’; a discussion which also incorporates the issues of immigration and asylum.

European Union, Citizenship, Identity, Neoliberalism, Ethnoculturalism, Exclusion, Immigration
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Copyright Taylor & Francis
2000
Taylor & Francis
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