CITIZENSHIP IN TIMES OF EUROPEAN INTEGRATION: (SUPRA)NATIONAL IDENTITY, LANGUAGE AND BODY POLITICS IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

The EU is neither a state, nor a nation state, nor a federation. As Jessop (Reference Jessop2008) noted, the EU consists of a variety of states, which introduces a social and economic heterogeneity into the European economy that the mechanisms of the EU try to diminish by treaties and common strategies (pp. 212–213). Hence, the European institutions (the European Commission, the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament) work together with national governments, although the EU's regulatory policies, such as language policies usually surpass the national legislation, and are adopted by the member states.

There are many different approaches to European identity (Boukala, Reference Boukala2013; Krzyżanowski, Reference Krzyżanowski2010; Wodak & Boukala, Reference Wodak, Boukala, Carta and Morin2014, Reference Wodak and Boukala2015). Here, we emphasize the dynamics of supranational European identity. We assume that European identity was and continues to be constructed through the actions and aims of national elites whose needs transcend national borders (Checkel & Katzenstein, Reference Checkel and Katzenstein2009; Cinpoes, Reference Cinpoes2008). In other words, this approach emphasizes the role of political elites in the top-down construction of European identity.

“Identity” as a theoretical concept is always defined via similarity and difference (e.g., Ricoeur, Reference Ricoeur1992; Wodak, Reference Wodak and Flowerdew2014, Reference Wodak and Boukala2015; Wodak et al., Reference Wodak, de Cillia, Reisigl and Liebhart2009). Language choice, and language itself, is a necessary part of identity construction (both individual and collective), as has been extensively documented in sociolinguistic research from the 1970s onwards (see Triandafyllidou & Wodak, Reference Triandafyllidou and Wodak2003, for an extensive overview). Language and language use manifest “who we are”; and “we” define reality partly through “our” language and linguistic behavior.

The manifold discursive forms of inclusion and exclusion define who are “Europeans” and create an “imagined community” (Anderson, Reference Anderson1991; Castoriadis, Reference Castoriadis1981) that necessarily excludes “others.” Indeed, the study of mainstream voices (Krzyżanowski & Oberhuber, Reference Krzyżanowski and Oberhuber2007) illustrates how European elites, like members of the European Parliament (Wodak, Reference Wodak2011a), define Europeanness and how they continuously produce in-groups and out-groups through discursive strategies of positive-self and negative-other representation. Furthermore, hegemonic discursive forms of inclusion and exclusion create an “imagined community” that does not comprise “others”: “those that are not worthy of becoming Europeans” (Wodak, Reference Wodak2007, p. 651; Reference Wodak, Delanty, Jones and Wodak2011b) and usually represented as “strangers” (Simmel, Reference Simmel1950; Bauman, Reference Bauman1995), or even “enemies.” In many ways as also exemplified below, the EU constructs its identity via its distinction from the “other” and accomplishes the discursive construction of supranational identity inter alia through policies of citizenship and language policies.

Here, we also draw on Lamont's work on racial and ethnic boundaries (Lamont & Molnar, Reference Lamont and Molnar2002), which suggested that groups can create and cross boundaries simultaneously and that people construct “boundary ideologies” distinguishing between “us” and “them” in their everyday discourse while drawing on “the cultural resources to which they have access to and the structural conditions in which they are placed” (pp. 167ff.). In a similar vein, Wodak (Reference Wodak2007) described how European elites proceed to the discursive construction of a “European nexus”: “discursive practices can accomplish exclusion in its many facets without the explicitly acknowledged intention of actors, exclusion becomes normality and acceptable, integrated into all dimensions of our societies, while in other cases, exclusion is practised explicitly, through language tests, citizenship and so forth” (p. 643).

Delanty (Reference Delanty2000) defined citizenship as “membership of a political community that involves a set of relationships between rights, duties, participation and identity. These may be termed the components of citizenship, the defining tenets of group membership. Citizenship in the classical tradition of modern liberal thought has generally been held to be a particular relationship of rights and duties” (p. 9). At the same time, citizenship is to be perceived as a legal institution of the 28 member states of the EU and one that determines who belongs or does not belong to the EU (Delanty, Jones, & Wodak, Reference Delanty, Jones and Wodak2011; Krzyżanowski & Wodak, Reference Krzyżanowski and Wodak2009). Since 2000, many (most) European countries have required migrants to demonstrate proficiency in the national language of the host country in order to secure citizenship and integration (Extramiana et al., Reference Extramiana, Pulinnx and Van Avermaet2014). Such a revival in the importance of competence in the national language as a gatekeeping device leads to re/nationalizing tendencies (Wodak, Reference Wodak2013, Reference Wodak and Flowerdew2014, Reference Wodak2015) which reintroduce the in-group of “us,” “European citizens,” and the out-group of “non-European others,” or “illegal,” “undocumented” or “irregular” migrants.

But who are these illegal or irregular migrants thus invoked? A recent study on the representation of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers in British newspapers over a decade (1996–2006) provides evidence that the concepts of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers are conflated into one large category of “others”, that is, strangers, in the media reporting of both tabloids and broadsheets (although less so in the latter) (Baker et al., Reference Baker, Gabrielatos, KhosraviNik, Krzyżanowski, McEnery and Wodak2008; KhosraviNik Reference KhosraviNik2010, pp. 22–23). These findings resonate with earlier studies on the representation of refugees and migrants such as post-1989 in Austria (Matouschek, Wodak, & Januschek, Reference Matouschek, Wodak and Januschek1995), where similar flood metaphors as well as topoi of criminality, danger and burden were identified. These findings allow us to conclude that much discourse about migrants and immigration seems to bear (several) almost universal features, throughout Europe and beyond, which can be explained by social theories about “othering” and the discursive construction of “the stranger” and “fear of the stranger,” as mentioned above. Border and identity/body politics converge to keep specific strangers out while letting others in. Moreover, poor and destitute insiders are suddenly defined as strangers and also excluded.

“Border politics” is part of national identity politics and is now increasingly defined by the national language (“the mother tongue”), ethnicity and culture, thus transcending the political borders of the nation state. Such language policies imply a return to national language policies which essentialize the nation state, promoting a homogeneous culture, language and territory. Obviously, the concept of a mother tongue relates to what Wodak (Reference Wodak2015) labels nativist “body politics,” that is, viewing and conceptualizing the nation as a body with the mother tongue symbolizing the national language (Musolff, Reference Musolff, Okulska and Cap2010). Accordingly, much research illustrates that renationalizing tendencies can be observed across several EU member states and thus a nativist body politics seems to be “celebrating” such a revival (de Cillia & Dorustkar, Reference de Cillia, Dorustkar, Dahlvik, Reinprecht and Wiebke2013; Norocel, Reference Norocel2013). By extending the model of Norocel (Reference Norocel2013), we claim that not only does the “family” as source domain imply the “nation” as target domain, but that the original source domain actually consists of the human (male) “body” (the Volk), which becomes a “family” (multiple bodies incorporated by the Volk) and then encapsulates the “nation” (p. 94).Footnote ⁸

In this article, we primarily focus on nomination (how events/ objects/ persons are referred to) and predication (what characteristics are attributed to them) strategies. The DHA also employs Aristotle's rhetorical topoi and elaborates Toulmin's argumentation scheme (Reference Toulmin2003) as and when appropriate.Footnote ⁹ Kienpointner (Reference Kienpointner, Ostman and Verschueren2011) defined topoi as “search formulas which tell you how and where to look for arguments” (p. 265). At the same time, topoi are warrants which guarantee the transition from argument to conclusion.”

LANGUAGE POLITICS AND THE EU DIRECTIVE ON “THE STATUS OF THIRD-COUNTRY NATIONALS WHO ARE LONG-TERM RESIDENTS”

Our analysis links two concepts—language policies and language ideologies—to citizenship and (supra)national identity strategies. Language policies can be defined as “regulatory tools governing how language should coexist and be used in specific social, political and economic contexts; these are always inherent representations of different language ideologies, that is, beliefs, visions and conceptions of the role of certain language(s) held by different (most commonly institutional) social actors” (Wodak, Reference Wodak and Flowerdew2014, p. 135). Language ideologies can be viewed as “cultural ideas, presumptions and presuppositions with which different social groups name, frame and evaluate linguistic practices” (Gal, Reference Gal, Mar-Molinero and Stevenson2006, p. 13). At the level of micro-interactions, they must however be conceived of as (re-)constructed and negotiated in debates “in which language is central as a topic, a motif, a target, and in which language ideologies are being articulated, formed, amended, enforced” (Blommaert, Reference Blommaert and Blommaert1999, p. 1). Such language-ideology debates are apparent in both public and semipublic spheres. Accordingly, language ideologies are “produced in discourses, in news media, in politics, in narratives of national belonging, in advertising, in academic text, and in popular culture” (Blackledge, Reference Blackledge2005, p. 44). In our case, language ideologies support the salient role of the mother tongue in defining the nation, thus emphasizing the notion of Kulturnation (Wodak et al., Reference Wodak, de Cillia, Reisigl and Liebhart2009).

In the following, we approach the EC directive “concerning the status of third-country nationals who are long-term residents” as the hegemonic apparatus of a dominant, supranational political eliteFootnote ¹¹ that defines who belongs and who does not belong in the EU through language and language testing. Increasingly, specific language tests are employed to test language competence before acquiring citizenship; language proficiency has thus become one of the key gatekeepers. Bauböck and Wallace (Reference Bauböck and Wallace2012) also provided evidence for ever more restrictive regulations: in 1998, only six states had citizenship and/or language tests; by 2010, the number had grown to 18; by 2013, to 23 (see Table 1; note that this table is already outdated and the situation is constantly changing).

Table 1.

Citizenship and language requirements in selected EU countries (A indicates a language test before entering; B a language test is required for a work permit; C a language test is required for citizenship.)Footnote ¹⁰

By 2014, 26 of the 36 countries participating in the survey reported that migrants have to demonstrate a specified level of competence in the language of the host country in order to obtain citizenship and 23 require migrants to have a certain level of proficiency in the national language in order to obtain a residence permit. Nine countries to date have reported a pre-entry language requirement: Austria, Albania, Germany, Finland, France, Liechtenstein, The Netherlands, Poland, and the United Kingdom (Extramiana et al., Reference Extramiana, Pulinnx and Van Avermaet2014). Sixteen states offer naturalization to close relatives of citizens or to persons who are perceived as long-term residents and acknowledged to be ethnically or linguistically related to the majority population (Bauböck & Joppke, Reference Bauböck and Joppke2010; Michalowski, Reference Michalowski2011).

Of course, such regulations allow for a plethora of interpretations—after all, who defines what is regarded as similar or different and on what authority? What criteria are used for comparison? How integrative or assimilationist are these new policies in a specific sociopolitical context? And, finally, what kind of knowledge is tested—more to the point, what is conceived of, and by whom, as comprising salient knowledge of a language or of the hegemonic political and cultural knowledge of a specific country? It is important to add at this point that these requirements contradict important strategies of the EU's multilingual policies, which explicitly recommend acceptance of difference and diversity with respect to language and culture.

The discourse about citizenship thus constitutes new categories, new groups, new “real” citizens and “other” people who are regarded as having one or more “deficits” of some kind. They construct and essentialize new realities (see the overview in Michalowski, Reference Michalowski2011, pp. 750–752). This function has been well described by Orgad (Reference Orgad2010) for German citizenship tests, which

In our analysis of the Council of the European Union directive 2003/109/EC concerning the status of third-country nationals who are long-term residents, we investigate if and how the EU (and/or nation-states) distinguish “us,” Europeans, from “them,” “third-country nationals.” The directive opens with the statement:

Three social actors are presented in the above extract, the EC, member state(s) and “third-country nationals.” The nomination “third-country national” is contrasted to “European citizens”; it remains open to speculation why the term “national” is used and not “citizen” and what kind of latent meanings are conveyed by establishing such a contrast. Furthermore, the role of the EC is emphasized here, insofar as it is the authority that decides the rights of “third-country nationals who are long-term residents.” This is an example of the topos of authority (Reisigl & Wodak, Reference Reisigl and Wodak2001) that is based on the conclusion rule: “the legal status of third-country nationals should be approximated to that of member states” nationals because the EU says that it has to be done. Another important point is that the EU states that long-term residents “should be granted in that Member State a set of uniform rights which are as near as possible to those enjoyed by citizens of the European Union”; in this way it makes a distinction between “third-country nationals who are long-term residents of a EU member state” and “citizens of the European Union.”

The directive continues:

As there is a distinction between “third-country nationals” and “citizens of the EU,” the EC proposes “integration.” Via the topos of advantage, which can be paraphrased as “the integration of ‘third-country nationals’ should be performed by member states because it is a key element of the economic and social cohesion of the European Union,” integration is called for, on nondiscriminatory terms. Thereafter, the EC maintains its authority by advising that the directive should be applied “without discrimination,” while simultaneously recognizing the existence of discriminatory practices in EU member states. The force of this argument is realized by the topos of law that can be deconstructed in the conditional: “if a directive forbids any discriminatory actions, member states have to avoid them.” Finally, the usage of the metaphor “the person has put down roots in the country” highlights the importance of long-term residence in a EU member state by drawing a very common analogy between “belonging” and “having put down roots” (Krzyżanowski & Wodak, Reference Krzyżanowski, Wodak, Caldas-Coulthard and Iedema2007).

However, the EC does refer to specific conditions for integration: “To acquire long-term residence status, third-country nationals should prove that they have adequate resources and sickness insurance to avoid becoming a burden for the Member State.” Article 18 clarifies that “Member States may refuse applications for residence from long-term residents or their family members where the person concerned constitutes a threat to public health.” The underlying presuppositions imply in vague ways that the applications of “third-country nationals” can be rejected through a combination of arguments that are based on the topos of burden, according to which “if a person is burdened by specific problems, one should act to diminish these burdens,” and the topos of threat (summarized by the conditional: “if a political action or decision may have specific dangerous, threatening consequences—against the general public health—it should not be performed”). This section is, of course, open to many interpretations as threats to public health can be defined nationally. Articles 6 and 17 of the directive state that “third-country nationals who wish to acquire and maintain long-term resident status should not constitute a threat to public policy or public security.” It is clarified that:

The topos of threat dominates: The EC transfers the initiative to the member states implementing the directive to decide who should be refused entry due to security provisions—a measure open to much interpretation. The EC also recognizes the national responsibility to restrict equal treatment of third-country nationals (Article 11): “Member States may require proof of appropriate language proficiency for access to education and training.” Moreover, Article 15 refers to the conditions for residence in a second Member State and clarifies that “the persons concerned may be required to attend language courses,” thus using epistemic modality. Language skills allow cultural, social and legal separation between groups of people in a society. Language competence is thus used by the EC and respective member states as a tool that legitimizes the exclusion of the “other” from the nation state and thus the EU.

In May 2011, Directive 2011/51/EU of the European Parliament and the Council amended Directive 2003/109/EC to extend its scope to beneficiaries of international protection.Footnote ¹² The directive also states that member states shall enact the necessary laws, regulations and administrative provisions to comply with the directive. Below, we analyze the kinds of compliance seen in Greece and Austria, respectively, and trace the implementation of the directive via the process of recontextualization.Footnote ¹³

CASE STUDIES: AUSTRIA AND GREECE IMPLEMENTING THE COUNCIL’S DIRECTIVE

Apart from the nationalities and personal experience of the two authors, a number of other political and social factors support the selection of these two countries as case studies. These are the rise of extreme right parties and movements and the subsequent emphasis on the legitimation of their anti-immigration discourses and policies, also by mainstream parties, although the countries have different economic statuses in the EU and have developed different migration policies (see Kallis, Reference Kallis, Wodak, Khosravinik and Mral2013; Krzyżanowski & Wodak, Reference Krzyżanowski and Wodak2009).

Austria

In 2012, c. 48,000 migrants from third countries came to Austria; 15,000 came from the former Yugoslavian countries, 4,500 from Turkey, and the rest from other countries. The Integration Agreement, first launched in 2003 and then reformulated in 2012, obliges applicants for permanent residence (other than asylum seekers and refugees, whose status is regulated by different laws) to complete a Deutsch-Integrations-Kurs (German Integration Course). Applicants are required to reach Level A1 of the six levels identified in the CEFR before entry. It is important to state at this point that the Austrian right-wing populist Freedom Party (FPÖ) had campaigned and continues to campaign explicitly against immigration, emphasizing time and again, over many years, that Austria is not a “country of immigration.” The political slogans are usually oriented against the Turkish minority living in Austria and against Muslim immigrants. Moreover, proficiency in the German language is highlighted as a/THE necessary condition for immigration and integration (see Figure 1). Other mainstream parties such as the Austrian Conservatives (ÖVP) quickly followed the program of the FPÖ and launched similar campaigns (see Figure 2) (for an extensive discussion of the Austrian debates about migrants and immigration, see Wodak, Reference Wodak2015; de Cillia & Dorustkar, Reference de Cillia, Dorustkar, Dahlvik, Reinprecht and Wiebke2013).

Figure 1.

FPÖ poster, Vienna Election Campaign 2010 (personal photo), Deutsch statt Nix Verstehen, “German instead of ‘no understanding’; We for You; 1 October for HC Strache.”

Figure 2.

ÖVP poster, Vienna Election Campaign, 2010 (personal photo), the poster says, in English, “Better Schools. Better chances. Let's talk about education. Preferably in German. More Vienna is possible!”

Migrants to Austria have to acquire a Rot-Weiss-Rot Card before entry (i.e., Red-White-Red Card indicates the colours of the Austrian flag). Most migrants (except highly qualified ones) must reach the C2 level of proficiency after 24 months in the country (see: www.oe24.at/oesterreich/politik/Rot-Weiss-Rot-Card-fuer-Auslaender/1503102 for details). In 2012, the emphasis of the NAP was reframed and now focuses primarily on the importance of language proficiency. Austria has also reframed its restrictive integration policy to become a so-called “welcoming country” for those migrants who really want to achieve something. In this way, a new form of categorization has been introduced: migrants who are welcome (highly qualified achievers) and migrants who are not welcome (neither educated nor qualified).

The NAP consists of three parts: the “integration report” which monitors integration in seven domains (Handlungsfelder), from language and education to health, media and sports and leisure. Second, so-called “integration indicators” have been established and are continuously monitored; these concern school completion, employment, proficiency in German and so forth. Statistics are published annually which document specific numbers for migrant groups in terms of age, sex, education and so forth. The third report concerns “measures” which are implemented locally and which serve to operationalize the more general proposals of the NAP, for each of the seven domains, some of which correlate with the EC directive. Due to space restrictions, however, we focus below mainly on the measures related to language proficiency.

In the NAP.I, the acquisition of German language skills is emphasized as a prerequisite for taking part in economic and social life in Austria. The intention here is not to downgrade the value of other languages or impose monolingualism upon society. Quite the contrary, multilingualism is acknowledged and promoted as a valuable resource. At the same time, however, according to the NAP.I,

skills in speaking the common language should be improved, because only such skills enable immigrants to take part in the processes and communications concerning society as a whole—namely beyond their own community.

In this extract, the contrast between multilingualism and “the common language” is clearly highlighted. Multilingualism is defined as a valuable resource; the “common language” (i.e., German), however, is promoted as the means to be able to participate in society. It is also presupposed that remaining within one's own community might not make sense. Through a quite sophisticated rhetorical twist in this extract, the topos of advantage is employed in respect of acquisition of the “common language.”

In the eyes of an Expert Council which advises the government, the focus in the last few years was on long-term anchoring of and improvement in language promotion in early childhood, so as “to make use of intuitive acquisition of the German language.” The objective in this context is that

three- to six-year-olds who cannot speak German are supported at childcare centres in such a way that their knowledge of German is sufficient for them to take part actively in classes once they enter school.

The second extract illustrates the focus on early childhood and the support for small children while learning German. It is presupposed in this extract that this policy is directed only toward migrant children—although, of course, also many Austrian children whose native and first language is German have no competence in Standard German. In this way, a division is constructed between Austrian children who know German and migrant children who do not. In the following extract, the concept of “integration” is explicitly defined:

“The NAP.I is based on an understanding of integration that aims to improve the opportunities for participation; the question about cultural homogeneity is relegated to the background, because, among other things, cultural homogeneity in a pluralistic society is a fiction that inhibits inclusion. Yet pluralism does not automatically result in an arbitrary fragmentation of society into sub-groups not related to one another but, instead, requires common basic values as an integrative tie so that it can work. Only when there is a basic consensus on the values based on the rule of law is cultural diversity in a liberal society unobjectionable from the vantage point of security and enrichment from the vantage point of culture. Thus the European principle of (cultural) diversity in (legal) unity [in the meaning of the Copenhagen Criteria] is fulfilled at the national level.”

On the one hand, it is officially acknowledged that Austria is a pluralistic society and that the imaginary of a homogeneous society necessarily remains a myth. On the other hand, a potential danger is evoked by the topos of threat, that is, by stressing fragmentation as a possible consequence of pluralism, should common values—which are presupposed and not defined—not be observed. In conclusion, it is made clear that pluralism always depends on necessary security measures; pluralism thus remains open to change and interpretation by the government. In this way, important criteria and concepts remain semantically vague and can be redefined whenever necessary. Finally, by referring to the Copenhagen Declaration of 1973 (see above), the topos of authority is employed in order to legitimize the measures of the Austrian NAP. This and other intertextual references to the Directive of the EC and other European documents and treaties illustrate well the processes of recontextualization from the original EC directive into the Austrian NAP. Not only are the same domains referred to as in the EC directive, but the same positive values are evoked and the Europeanness of Austrian policies is thus co-constructed.

This brief summary of the Austrian case is a good example of the ever tougher regulations governing migration and of the introduction of language proficiency as a significant threshold for entry to Austria. Both residence and citizenship legislation have become much more restrictive in recent years, albeit reframed in a more positive achievement-oriented, neo-liberal way: language proficiency is now defined as a goal which every individual is able to achieve if they only try hard enough; the positive Austrian national identity is emphasized—integration thus implies being “proud of being an Austrian.” Here, the Austrian identity is imagined as homogeneous, stable, and positive, defined primarily culturally and economically, something which a migrant could easily adopt and wear, like a coat: Austrian identity is thus essentialized;Footnote ¹⁴ language proficiency has been clearly attributed the status of a powerful gatekeeper, along with other factors such as education, money, profession and age.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

The above analysis of the ways in which two EU member states—with different economic and social conditions—have adopted the EC directive illustrates the hegemonic role of the EU/EC in the discursive construction of in-groups of “Europeans” and out-groups of “third-country nationals.” Following Falkner et al. (Reference Falkner, Treib, Hartlapp and Leiber2005) “three worlds of compliance,” we argue that the two member states—Austria and Greece—complied with the EC directive; the respective implementation is an example of the “world of law observance” (p. 322) that shapes immigration and language policies. Proficiency in the national languages of EU members is used as a strategy for the exclusion of “strangers” and the enforcement of a (supra)national identity via border and body politics. Hence, the multilingualism of the EU is limited to member states’ national languages, in spite of the wording of official EU multilingualism policies (Ersbøll, Kostakopoulou, & Van Oers, Reference Ersbøll, Kostakopoulou and Van Oers2010; Krzyżanowski & Wodak, Reference Krzyżanowski and Wodak2011). Moreover, the representation of migrants as an anonymous mass and potential threat to public health, public security, and national identities legitimizes exclusion of the “other.”

In this vein, Greece, a country with an increasing number of so-called irregular immigrants and an underdeveloped migration policy, adopted the EC directive on the basis of its national interests and identity. The requirements for knowledge of the Greek language, culture and history illustrate the Kulturnation approach and lead to a renationalizing of traditional Greek values (Boukala, Reference Boukala2013; Tsoukalas, Reference Tsoukalas2013). On the other hand, Austria focuses mainly on the financial and educational status of migrants that seek permanent residence, and having adopted the political agenda of the extreme right wing under the mask of political correctness, this highlights the role of language proficiency as a powerful gatekeeper. Furthermore, the adoption of the EC directive by these two countries reveals some general migration strategies characteristic of each country. Officially, Austria refers to pluralism and positive integration of immigrants in the Austrian society, although the country's lawmakers represent the Austrian identity as homogeneous, cultural, and stable; Austrian citizenship remains based on ius sanguinis. The Greek lawmakers, in contrast, explicitly insist on the law of blood and implicitly represent the migrants as dangerous others that have to assimilate to the Greek society. However, the absence of any “Greek ancestry” implies that most of the migrants remain third-country nationals who are long-term residents in Greece.

In April 2014, Amnesty International published a report on human rights violations affecting migrants and refugees arriving in Greece and seeking entry to the EU. As the report notes,

The above extract illustrates that the main strategy of “fortress Europe” is the protection of Europe's borders from “strangers.” Hence, the European values of solidarity and integration as mentioned in the Copenhagen Declaration 1973 are challenged insofar as the EU resorts to strict border policies and highlights proficiency in European national languages as an institutionalized gatekeeper that determines who belongs or does not belong to the EU.