Union citizenship

The TEU also introduced the notion of citizenship of the Union (Article 17 (ex 8)). On the face of it, citizenship seems a relatively straightforward notion. It entitles EU nationals to certain rights such as freedom of movement throughout the Union and the right to vote and to stand in municipal elections or elections to the European Parliament in any Member State in which they are resi­dent. The precise extent of the rights to be granted to citizens, however, is not clear. Will citizenship incorporate rights contained elsewhere in the EC Treaty hitherto granted to EC workers, the self-employed and their families? Does it include rights and duties found in the TEU provisions relating to the other pillars (Article 6(2) TEU)? There has been much debate about the signifi­cance of European citizenship. Some see it as the beginning of the development of a common European identity or as a means to ameliorate the democratic deficit within the Union. Others have criticised it for being no more than a label for the rights of free movement already incorporated in the EC Treaty. The treaty does allow the Member States to increase the rights attaching to the notion of citizenship, but more than ten years on, it is still too early to tell how citizen­ship will fully develop. Recent secondary legislation is based in part on Article 18, though the legislation in question is in part a codification of existing secondary legislation and ECJ jurisprudence in the context of free movement of people. Whilst the jurisprudence of the ECJ has done much to enhance the rights available to migrant EU citizens, in the eyes of some com­mentators, there is no real European citizenship, but rather the links of nationality to individual Member States remain strong.

The other two pillars of the Union

Articles 11-28 (FSP) and 29-42 (JHA) of the TEU constitute the second and third pillars respectively of the European Union. Although they can be seen as extending the powers transferred to the European level, they can also be seen as maintaining the autonomy of the nation state. Decision-making within these pillars was, under the TEU, predominantly in the hands of the Council representing the Member States, and, although these two pillars share the institutions of the EC, the other Community institutions were limited in the role they played in both policymaking and enforcement. In addition, all decisions were required to be made unanimously and consequently progress towards effective policies within these areas would inev­itably be slow. The TEU contained provisions whereby some of the policies in JHA could be transferred to the EC (former Article K.9 TEU). A comparison between the decision-making processes within these two pillars and those of the EC would suggest that such a transfer must surely increase the speed of common pol­icymaking in those areas. This was recognised and, following the ratification of the ToA, several policy areas originally dealt with under JHA (eg, immigration and asy­lum of third-country (non-EU) nationals) are now dealt with under the EC Treatyю. The decision-making procedures under JHA have also been amended following Amsterdam, specifying in limited circumstances the use of qualified majority voting (QMV).