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Abstract:
This paper concerns itself with the emerging membership structure of the European Union and its implications for the permanently resident Third Country Nationals (TCNs) in the Union. The decisive qualifying factor for European citizenship is set as the acquisition of Member State nationality, which resulted in the exclusion of approximately 12-13 million TCNs from the benefits of European citizenship. As citizenship is the token of belonging in a community, this exclusion has serious repercussions for the membership in Euro-polity. Not only is the current treatment of TCNs legally problematic due to the absence of a Union denizenship clause, but also the political understanding of ‘Europeanness’ in the Union is incapable of justifying such treatment. It will be proposed that TCNs should be granted Union citizenship, but such a reform should in any case be coupled by the creation of Union denizenship.
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