PROVOCĂRI LA ADRESA SECURITĂŢII ŞI STRATEGIEI LA ÎNCEPUTUL SECOLULUI XXI

controls, the common use of the benefits of the Social Security systems, the
accreditation of academic courses and degrees...
In 1976 a second step took place when elections to the European
Parliament by universal suffrage were conducted. Although Parliament's
competences were meager, for the first time, one of the key elements of
citizenship, democratic participation, appeared.
Later on, after the Fontainebleau European Council in 1984, a
Committee of Europe of the Citizens, presided over by the Italian Euro MP
Adonnino, was established. This committee approved a series of
unambitious proposals leading to the constitution of a European citizenship.
More audacious was the Project of Treaty of European Union,
passed by the European Parliament, in February of 1984, and presented by
the euro MP Alterio Spinelli (Spinelli Project).
In spite of its restraint, the Single European Act (1986) hardly
included any of the Spinelli's project proposals, although it adopted, and that
is fundamental, the objective of a political European Union. In this manner,
a few years later, two Intergovernmental Conferences were convened to
reform the Treaties. One of them focused on the Economic and Monetary
Union, the other one, solely on the political Union.
A meeting of the European Council, which took place in Rome in
October 1990, in the course of establishing the IGCs guidelines, introduced
a notion of European Citizenship, as an essential element of the Treaties
reform, and with some characteristics and similar rights to those that were
later included in the Treaty of the European Union or Treaty of Maastricht.
It was the Spanish delegation that first presented to the IGCs, in
October 1990, a text on the European citizenship. After diverse negotiation,
and with the enthusiastic support of the European Parliament that passed
two favourable resolutions in 1991, the Treaty of the European Union came
finally to institutionalize European citizenship.
The extension of the rights
For many, the rights included in the citizenship statute are limited
and affect to a reduced number of Europeans, so they are considered as
irrelevant by most citizens.
The most significant is, with no doubt, free movement and
residence of persons. Although there have been remarkable advances from
the Treaty of Rome, where free movement was strictly bound to labour
activity, there are still serious limitations that should be eliminated. Despite
the different agreements reached, any country can re-establish controls on
border whenever its security was considered to be threatened and residence
freedom continues having different sort of restrictions [7].
The other rights affect in a negligible way the daily life of
European people: the right of appeal to the European Ombudsman only
deals with matters under EU jurisdiction; the right of petition to the
European Parliament already existed and has to do with a Parliament with
very scarce competences; the right to vote and stand in local government
and European Parliament elections in the country of residence affects to a
minority of European, the right to have diplomatic and consular protection
from the authorities of any other member State concerns solely the
Europeans that visit a third country in which there are not embassies or
consulates of its own state...
Following the opinion of the eurosceptic Ralf Dahrendorf, the
European citizenship lays still midway between two conceptions of
citizenship: what he denominates theoretical or soft citizenship, certain
feeling of being part of a community, of having some certain common goals
and values, and the practical or strong citizenship, real rights -vote, fair trial,
expression, association...- that can be claimed and juridical institutions to
protect the exercise of these rights.
The great debate in the following years will be: do we make steps
forward to strengthen the Citizenship of the Union statute, or do we keep it
as a largely theoretical institution?
A step in the first direction has been the edition and proclamation in
the Nice European Council of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the
European Union.
The emergence of a European identity
The concept of European identity is, at least, problematic. To some
extent, a great part of our continent's inhabitants feel themselves as
Europeans, but a majority feel more intensely their belonging to France,
Portugal, Spain, or Catalonia, Scotland or Flanders. Identities are not easily
separated and, often, different feelings of affinity -ethnic or racial group,
gender, political ideas, cultural affinities...- are mingled.
A genuine European Union requires a European identity, but it does
not exist. There is no linguistic or cultural homogeneity. A common identity
cannot be constructed on neither Christianism, nor democracy, nor
economical identity, or, of course, ethnic identity [6].
A lot of scholars have been lately trying to get to the bottom of
what means to be a European.
Samuel Huntington, a celebrated American academic, affirms that
Europe finishes where Eastern Orthodox Christendom and Islam start. So,
Greece, member State of the EU, is it not a European country? The Muslims
that have been so long living any neighbourhood of London, Paris or
Düsseldorf, are they not European?
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