The Formation of a Discourse on Citizenship at the Supranational Level
The new social initiatives were also to trigger the first explicit discussions as regards a Community or “European” citizenship. Although “Citizenship of the Union,” or a formal EU citizenship, was not to become part of the treaty until 1993—with the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty—the idea of creating such a citizenship for the EEC and subsequently the EC had been discussed off and on for many years (Wiener 1997: 537–8). References to “the citizens of Europe,” “Community citizens,” and a “Citizens’ Europe” were thus frequent long before the legal category “citizen of the Union” had been established.6
The first tangible initiatives toward the creation of the present EU citizenship were taken at the Paris summit between the Community’s heads of state and government in 1974, where a working group was set up for the purpose of studying what was referred to as “special rights” for member states’ citizens (CEC 1993b: 1; see also CEC 1996a: 5). Prior to the 1974 summit the Copenhagen foreign ministers’ meeting in 1973 had put forth a “Declaration on European identity” that (although it did not bring up the concept of a Community citizenship in the explicit) incorporated a discourse that to some extent would fit subsequent articulations of “European citizenship.” Among other things, the “Declaration on European identity” spoke of the urgent need to focus on the shared “heritage” and “to ensure the survival of the civilization” which the Community countries and the potential new members were said to have in common (CEC 1973).
In 1976 the Tindemans Report7 to the European Council would develop and expand on these interventions and link them directly to the idea of a “Citizens’ Europe.” Under this heading the Tindemans Report argued that in order for the Community to “be close to its citizens” the “values which are their common heritage” had to be safeguarded (Tindemans 1976: 26). It also explicated that “we,” the peoples of the European Community, “must build a type of society which is ours alone and which reflects the values which are the heritage and the common creation of our peoples”; a society “which respects the basic values of our civilization” (Tindemans 1976: 12).
But the grounding of a “European citizenship” in these self-assured views on heritage and civilization was only part of the story. Given its favorable inclination toward social reform during these years (Hoskyns 1996: 78–83; Hantrais 1995: 1, 5; Rossilli 1999), the Community also included social and economic issues in its discussion of citizenship. In the 1976 Tindemans report, for instance, the goal of full employment together with ideas of economic and industrial democracy were discussed as part of the citizenship agenda (see Hoskyns 1996: 78–83).8 As the powers over economic policy gradually moved to transnational arenas, it was argued, “this problem should be solved at the European level by increasing worker participation in the management, control or profits of business” (Tindemans 1976: 25). The “security of the workforce, . . . and their participation in company decisions and company profits” were seen by the Report as policy objectives to be managed at the “European level” in order to “restore to us at Union level that element of protection and control of our society which is progressively slipping from the grasp of State authority due to the nature of the problems and the internationalization of social life” (Tindemans 1976: 24, 28). “[E]conomic and social rights,” as citizens” rights, were thus seen as matters which should be managed by empowered Community institutions. As a consequence, intergovernmental arrangements were ruled out as unable to deal with “our collective needs” and the future social dilemmas of economic and corporate transnationalization (Tindemans 1976: 26, 29).
Community Citizenship and Migration
In conjunction with these developments, there were also some tentative signs that issues pertaining to external migration and resident TCNs were beginning to receive some consideration at the Community level. The growing attention being directed at social welfare and citizenship can thus be said to have been conducive to bringing also the situation for external migrants on the supranational agenda—and this for the very first time. The matter was not only touched upon in the 1974 Social Action Program; that same year the Commission also presented a proposal for an action program exclusively focusing on the question of migration, entitled “Action Program in favour of migrant workers and their families” (CEC 1976 [1974]). It should be said that the program chiefly focused on the situation for internal, free moving migrants, whom at this moment still were spoken of and categorized as migrants. But also external migrants, and particularly those domiciled, were given quite some consideration.
By discussing the situation for internal and external migrants in the same breath, the Commission also put the finger on what it took to be an ever more problematic and embarrassing division within the Community between two groups of migrants; two groups who despite being bound by basically the same obligations nonetheless lived under very different and unequal circumstances when it came to the enjoyment of rights and freedoms. As noted by the Commission (1976 [1974]: 14) at the time: “[T]he legal situation of migrant workers coming from third countries depends on the status accorded to them by the host country. . . . The result is that migrant workers from third countries are generally treated less favourably than workers coming from the Member States, and the situation of these third country migrants varies considerably from one country to another.” Furthermore:
[T]he social conditions of the migrant do indeed give cause for serious concern—especially in the case of third country migrants, who have no Community protection and rely solely on often restrictive national legislation . . . For this reason solutions in common must be found, not only to the problems of Community migrants but also for those from third countries. These solutions must take account of the migrant workers’ needs and their rightful place in a society to whose prosperity and well-being they contribute. As the migrant population increases, and they remain longer in the Community, so their interests in the affluent society around them increases and their sense of exclusion from it can become more acute. (CEC 1976 [1974]: 12)
On this view, the Commission called for measures to improve migrants’ lot in general, and to gradually phase out the discrepancies with regard to rights and legal status between internal and external migrants. The fact, for instance, that TCNs ran an unwarranted high risk of being deported was addressed, and the Commission criticized the member states for the ways in which they were utilizing the deportation instrument. However, the Commission would not go as far as proposing that the right of free movement, and the rights and entitlements belonging to it, be granted to TCNs. Nonetheless, for its time these were still quite forcible formulations, and as is evident from the unfavourable depiction of the “restrictive” member states they also marked a certain divergence of opinion between the Commission and the member governments as concerned migration policy.
In connection with this, the Commission went on to caution that unless migrants’ predicaments were alleviated this would contribute to a climate that was conducive to a growing racism and xenophobia. Therefore, measures were needed to enhance migrants’ “integration” (this was probably the first time the term was used in the EU context) into society; and member states were asked to begin a coordination of their, among themselves, very dissimilar migration policies toward countries outside the Community. In addition, governments were requested to work out common measures to come to terms with “illegal immigration,” which the Commission saw as a large and fast growing problem. In sharp contrast to its future outlook on the matter, which we will discuss ahead, the Commission was