Transnational Citizenship - The European Union As A Test Case For Transnational Citizenship

The European Union As A Test Case For Transnational Citizenship

"The question for the future of citizenship is whether a ‘global' citizenship can transcend citizenships defined by ‘local' stages on the basis of blood and birth through an act of the state itself." –Henry Teune

Some scholars consider the creation of the European Union as the pilot case for testing Teune's question about whether or not transnational citizenship can surpass national citizenship. Starting in the early 1980s, European national migration control officials met and established a consensus over the relationship between migration, asylum and crime. The control officials deemed migration as a security issue, and called for a "multi-level governance" in order to control migratory practices. Virginie Guiraudon generates the theory of "venue-shopping" in order to describe how cross-national policies prevailed. Venue-shopping is the process by which political members seek out specific governmental settings in order to establish their ideal policy outcomes. Political actors circumvented national levels of control in order to establish a "transnational cooperation" among nation-states. Starting in 1981, citizens with passports from European countries were able to move freely across borders into other European countries. Due to the increased ease of traversing borders, the "Europeanization" of individuals began to occur in which a new transnational identity could be conceived .

The creation of the European Union only accelerated growing notions of transnational citizenship across the continent. The European Union came into being on November 1, 1993, when European nations signed the Treaty of Maastricht into law. The treaty established "community policy" in six new areas, one of which is termed "trans-European networks." The treaty also discusses the specific effects of the merger on a new formation of European citizenship. The benefits of European citizenship include the ability for citizens to freely cross borders into and subsequently reside in other European countries, the right to vote in elections and run for office in both municipal and European elections in the state in which the citizen resides, the right to access any member country's diplomatic or consular services in a third-party country in which the citizen's birth nation is not represented, and the citizen's right to petition to the European parliament. The treaty thus instituted "European citizenship over and above national citizenship" . This ultimately facilitates a new form of "European identity" that allows for members of the European Union to function as transnational actors beyond their countries' borders, establishing the entire continent as one cohesive entity.

Finally, the creation of the euro serves as the pinnacle of Europe's newfound economic unification. On January 1, 1999, the euro replaced the pre-existing currency in 11 European countries . The Treaty of Maastricht also created the European System of Central Banks, which consists of the Central European Bank and national central banks working together to establish monetary policy across participating countries . Some scholars consider the act of unifying the currency as "culminating the progress toward economic and monetary union in Europe" . While the aspect of monetary union is clear, the far-reaching effects of economic union between countries could be considered a cause for debate. Regardless, the euro allows for transnational citizens of the European Union to not only move freely across borders, but also to experience easier monetary exchanges through the ability to use a currency that is present in both the citizens' home and host countries. The political, economic, and social ramifications that result from the invention of the European Union help contribute to the construction of European citizens as the international model for transnational citizenship.