The Postnational Concept of Citizenship

CaporasoReference Caporaso² compares the European Union to the postmodern state.³ He describes the postmodernReference Van Ham⁴ state as fragmented and multileveled. There are three aspects of postmodernity that can be found in the EU: (1) weak core; (2) many spatial locations and (3) multilevel policy based on interconnectedness, not nestedness (Ref. Reference Caporaso2, p. 147). According to Caporaso, the central political institutions of the EU can be considered thin. The domestic institutions still play a more significant role in the domain of social policy, citizenship rights and welfare policy, than the political institutions of the EU. Secondly, the EU represents a multileveled polity that includes many different spatial locations. Thirdly, this multilevel polity is not based on the idea of nestedness,Reference Closa⁵ but on an interconnectedness that implies interaction ‘among different levels above and below nation-state’ (Ref. Reference Closa6, p. 512). Van Ham argues that postmodern polities are concerned about individual well-being, prosperity and the improvement of democratic governance. Postmodern polities reject the idea of undialectical border and fixed identity, and are less concerned about state sovereignty (Ref. Reference Van Ham7, p. 15) In this way pluralism and the idea of multiple, shifting identities are emphasized.Reference Van Ham⁸ A postmodern polity implies a postnational notion of citizenship that is not fixed by borders nor by essentialist notions of identity. Postnational citizenship should not be defined by nation or culture. This notion of citizenship should embrace challenges of processes of globalization and pluralism. Those processes require a multilayered conception of citizenship founded on the idea of multiple identities.Reference Horváth⁹

Postnational citizenship is tied to the existence of global institutions and human rights discourses that challenge the monopoly of the nation-state. Postnational or ‘transnational citizenship is less expansive than its apparent synonyms, world citizenship and global citizenship, and is more clearly cross-border than the term cosmopolitan citizenship. A longstanding normative theoretical tradition calls for “global” or “world” citizenship. In contrast, the term transnational citizenship can refer to cross-border relations that are far from global in scope’ (Ref. Reference Fox10, p. 177).

Postnational citizenship arises with global political changes, such as globalization and pluralism. Globalization challenges the efficacy, sovereignty and democratic legitimacy of the nation-state. Pluralism erodes the homogeneity of nation-states and refigures the idea of collective identity. Homogeneity of collective identities is also challenged by some contemporary problems such as ecological disasters, organized crime and human trafficking, which transcend borders and cannot be solved by relying merely on the capacity of nation-states.Reference Habermas¹¹ Thus, in some aspects the policy of the nation-states is ineffective. The concept of borders is transformed by the development of global health institutions (such as the World Health Organization), global military force (such as NATO), global economic institutions (such as the International Monetary Fund) and a universal human rights discourse represented by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.Reference Habermas¹¹ Borders became fluid and capacity shifted from national to transnational level. Intensive migrations in the past few decades require a new policy that provides for the equality of individuals and social groups regardless of their race, religion, age, sex, language, and so forth.

Erosion of the national model of citizenship is a consequence of the increased circulation of goods and mobility of working citizens after the Second World War. The national model of citizenship is based on the idea of fixed borders which determine both the state and national identity. In this way, citizenship as membership in a national community and territorial belonging are concordant. Within the framework of the national model of citizenship, citizenship status and rights and duties are ascribed only to individuals as members of the nation. Belonging to the nation is determined by various myths, historical and cultural heritage, ethnic, linguistic and other characteristics. Consequently, the fundamental question: ‘What is a nation?’ cannot be exactly defined, because it is often a matter of policy. ‘Nation’ is a contingent, not an essentialist category. National citizenship served the interests of the modern state. However, contemporary capitalistic corporations are antinational and their interests often contradict the interests of singular states. The traditional order of national citizenship implies uniform citizenship rights and formal equality. Citizenship is perceived as a status ascribed to the individual, whose identity is perceived as rational, stable, coherent and conscious. On the other hand, the postnational model of citizenship implies multiple and complex notions of identity. The postnational condition dissociates nation, identity and state and implies multiple levels of membership in the community. It includes complex systems of rights and duties and different identities (supranational, national, regional, local, personal, etc).

According to Tembini, there are three basic forms of postnational citizenship: (1) postnational membership; (2) European citizenship; and (3) multicultural citizenship. In the following lines the postnational nature of European citizenship will be analyzed. Kostakopolou argues that EU citizenship as a postnational form of citizenship should be conditioned on domicile. ‘Domicile could easily be propounded as a Community law concept, thereby ensuring uniformity and fairness in the interpretation of the personal scope of Union citizenship throughout the Union’ (Ref. Reference Kostakopolou12, pp. 345–346). EU citizenship based on domicile would embrace a more heterogeneous idea of European identity and the European public.Reference Kostakopolou¹³ This new conception of EU citizenship requires more fluid notions of identity and space. It embraces the idea of fluid boundaries¹⁴ and politics based on solidarity, not ethnicized identities. Soysal describes postnational citizenship as a possible combination of citizenship and denizenship, or as based on dual nationality. It presupposes fluidity of identities and boundaries. According to Soysal, the traditional model founded on national citizenship based on nationality can no longer embrace the dynamics of belonging and membership in contemporary Europe (Ref. Reference Soysal15, p. 21).

Kostakopolou derives another conception of postnational citizenship. According to Kostakopolou, ‘developments in the European Union have brought forth the possibility of membership in various overlapping and strategically interacting political communities on supranational, national and subnational levels and have unleashed the potential for rethinking citizenship, community and identity. However, the dynamics of the European Union citizenship have not been fully and properly explored’ (Ref. Reference Kostakopolou12, p. 338). The EU citizenship should be considered a dynamic category that is constantly in a process of flux and change. Thus, it should be perceived as contingent, not essentialist. The content of rights and duties ascribed to citizenship changes over time. This change in the content of rights can also be caused by the development of human rights and different social movements. This dynamic nature of the EU citizenship should be explicitly stated within the EU legal framework. Kostakopolou introduces the concept of ‘constructive citizenship’ that transcends the idea of the nation-state (Ref. Reference Kostakopolou12, p. 338). This conception of citizenship rejects essentialist notions of identity. It embraces multiple identities that include difference. Constructive citizenship is differentiated according to gender, race, class, and so forth. Constructive citizenship implies that the nation-state is no longer perceived as a primary source of identity. Thus, it represents the form of postnational citizenship.

Soysal's Conception of Postnational Citizenship

Soysal argues that postnational citizenship is based on personhood, not nationality. She argues that this new mode of citizenship is produced by ‘dialectical tension between national citizenship and universal human rights’ (Ref. Reference Soysal15, p. 164). Individual rights are no longer defined by nation-state. They transcend its borders and become universal. Consequently, ‘the rights of the person transcend those of the citizen’ (Ref. Reference Soysal15, p. 165). Soysal argues that international declarations and charters ascribe rights to all human beings as free and equal individuals. She emphasizes that this perspective is presented in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966) and the European Convention on Human Rights (1950). However, Soysal does not recognize that the language of universality and sameness employed in these documents substantively denies heterogeneity and difference. This was clearly explained by Iris Marion Young.Reference Young¹⁶ According to Young, the modern ideal of citizenship represented in most human rights declarations and conventions perceives equality as sameness, which creates the binary opposition universal/particular, where what citizens have in common is perceived ‘as opposed to how they differ’ (Ref. Reference Young16, p. 250). Hence, the modern political ideal of universal citizenship implies that the law is applied to all in the same way, regardless of their differences. In this way, a logic that imposes sameness over difference is created (Ref. Reference Benhabib17, p. 7).

Soysal argues that ‘a new and more universal concept of citizenship has unfolded in the post-war era, one whose organizing and legitimating principles are based on universal personhood rather than national belonging’ (Ref. Reference Soysal15, p. 1). According to Soysal, this new post-national concept of citizenship is not exclusionary, because it is not based on nationality, but on a universal concept such as personhood. The notion of personhood implies universal rights that transcend borders. Postnational citizenship is a consequence of transnational human rights discourse. Soysal considers universal human rights and national sovereignty as two basic ‘institutionalized principles of the global system.’ (Ref. Reference Soysal15, p. 7). The national model of citizenship is based on the idea of fixed borders and essentialist identity. This idea of citizenship is exclusionary because it grants rights only to those individuals who are considered state nationals. It implies a number of binary distinctions such as: we/they, self/other, citizen/stranger, national/non-national, and so forth. On the contrary, the postnational model of citizenship includes both national and transnational actors (Ref. Reference Soysal15, p. 7). In this way, the nation state is not perceived as the primary source of identity any more.

According to Soysal, these two models of citizenship (national and transnational) create ‘dialectic tension’ (Ref. Reference Soysal15, p. 8). However, it can be argued that Soysal's conception of postnational citizenship also implies dialectic tensions and binary oppositions. Soysal argues that ‘the postwar era is characterized by a reconfiguration of citizenship from a more particularistic one based on nationhood to a more universalistic one based on personhood’ (Ref. Reference Soysal15, p. 137). She emphasizes that the postnational conception of citizenship is universal, while the national model of citizenship is particular. In this way, she derives the postnational concept of citizenship from the binary opposition universal/particular. Postnational citizenship implies fluid and multiple identities, that transcend binary oppositions. The existence of binary oppositions points to an essentialist understanding of identity. According to Soysal, some major developments in the postwar era led to the reinterpretation of national citizenship. The first concerns the emergence of global institutions and transnational political structures that challenge the nation state monopoly (Ref. Reference Soysal15, p. 144). The pluralism of contemporary societies requires the notion of a citizenship tied to a more fluid notion of identity. The second concerns the emergence of universalist rules of human rights discourse. Soysal argues that: ‘International conventions and charters ascribe universal rights to persons regardless of their membership status in a nation-state’ (Ref. Reference Soysal15, p. 145).

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: ‘All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.’ The idea of personhood presented within the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is rational and conscious. It excludes other forms of identity and social groups. Thus, it is universalist and essentialist. Soysal argues that the universal concept of personhood should represent the foundation for the postnational model of citizenship. She emphasizes that ‘it is within this new universalistic discourse that the individual, as an abstract, human person, supplants the national citizen’ (Ref. Reference Soysal15, p. 164). This idea is flawed and contradicts the basic principles of postnational polity. Postnational perspective implies differentiation and fragmentation of culture, identity, politics and other concepts. It includes ‘the decline of “grand narratives” of legitimation in politics and society; the celebration of the idea of difference and heterogeneity; the globalization of culture with telecommunications networks; the emphasis on flexibility and reflexivity in lifestyle; a decline in the idea of coherence as a norm of personality; and the decline of “industrial society” and its replacement by “postfordism” and “postindustrialism”’ (Ref. Reference Isin and Wood18, p. 7).

Soysal grounds the postnational model of citizenship on the modernist notion of the self as a rational, conscious, autonomous, unified and stable category. However, this conception of the subject contradicts the postnational model of citizenship that embraces multiple and fragmentary identities. Soysal is aware that a universalist concept of personhood is not compatible with the idea of multiculturalism,Reference Soysal¹⁹ but she does not try to transform this point of view. Another problem of Soysal's conception of postnational citizenship is that it does not transcend dualities such as: global/national, universal/particular, self/other, identity/rights and so forth. She recognizes two principles – the universal principle of human rights that transcends the borders of nation-state, on the one hand, and the particular principle of national sovereignty – that is, ties to fixed borders of the nation state – on the other hand. She represents these two principles as two completely separate and irreconcilable spheres.

Soysal identifies that ‘a growing tendency toward regionalisms (sometimes separatisms) and their recognition by the central states, fragments existing nations and nationalities into infinitely distinct ethnicities and cultural subunits’ (Ref. Reference Soysal15, p. 161). Although she argues that national identity becomes fragmentary and multileveled, she does not apply this point of view to the idea of personhood, which she perceives as universalist. She describes the postnational state as a multiplicity of membership (Ref. Reference Soysal15, p. 164). Although Soysal highlights the multiplicity of membership that embraces global, regional and local identities,Reference Soysal²⁰ she grounds those identities on universalist and essentialist assumptions. In this way they are fixed and do not support pluralism of contemporary societies in a substantive way. She grounds those multiple identities on the universalist, stable, autonomous and fixed notion of personhood and that is why they cannot represent the postnational model of citizenship. Postnational citizenship implies fluid boundaries. Its nature is contradictory to all kinds of binary oppositions. Thus, it resolves discord between universal and particular, global and local, essential and contingent, etc.

Policy of Affinity versus Policy of Identity

The citizenship debate is often turned into a debate about identity. In the history of citizenship studies there are two dominant groups of theorists. Representatives of the first group argue about the essentialist and universalist nature of individuals and social groups, while representatives of the second group argue that individual and group identities are socially and historically constructed. The first group can be considered to subscribe to the modern liberal idea of identity, based on binary oppositions such as: essential./contingent, citizen/stranger, nature/culture and so forth. Both elements of those binary oppositions are perceived as fixed and static. The second group moves towards a postmodern concept of identity as polyphonic, contingent and flexible category. Postmodern thinkers argue that identity is produced by discourse – it is socially and historically constructed. Consequently, identity should be comprehended as heterogeneous, because it includes different voices and perspectives, which are constantly reinterpreted. However, ‘postmodern’ and ‘postnational’²¹ are not synonymous concepts. The postnational state implies multiple identities; however, those identities can still be perceived as homogeneous and fixed. The postmodern idea of identity also implies a polyphonic concept of identity.

However, multiple identities as emphasized by postmodern thinkers are considered heterogeneous and flexible. The postnational state still allows the conflict between personal and social identity, because, as is shown by the example of Soysal's understanding of postnational citizenship, those identities can still be defined as monolithic.²² In that case, postnational citizenship does not transcend borders or the modernist idea of identity. In the following lines it will be argued that postnational citizenship requires the postmodern idea of identity based on politics of affinity (not stable and essentialist identity).

Soysal's idea of transnational citizenship based on universalist assumptions reflects a politics of identity. The politics of identity arose in the second half of the twentieth century. It implies the struggle for recognition of different social and political groups and movements (feminism, Black civil rights, gay rights, etc). However, the politics of identity homogenizes experiences and narratives of diverse individuals. It aims at developing and strengthening collective identities. It employs various identificators as instruments of its operationalization. Those identificators simplify narratives, experiences and characteristics of different social groups and produce stereotypes (Ref. Reference Stojković23, 15). The politics of identity does not transcend power relations and binary hierarchies. It perceives ‘gender’, ‘citizenship’, ‘class’, ‘nation’, etc as static and essentialist categories. Thus, it denies a voice to certain groups. As an essentialist politics it ‘asserts that some relations are more important than others (i.e. the Marxist assumption of class as the defining social and economic category) and therefore have to be taken into account when constructing strategies for political change’ (Ref. Reference Van Ham7, p. 69).

Postnational citizenship requires a politics of more flexible identity. This model of citizenship should be based on a politics of affinity, which implies otherness and difference. According to Harraway, every form of identity aspires to essentialize and categorize the subject. For this reason, she denies the notion of identity, and replaces it by ‘affinity’. Affinity represents a result of ‘otherness, difference and specifity’ (Ref. Reference Harraway24, p. 156). A politics of affinity is based on the idea that individuals join the group through sharing affect, not ideology. Although identity politics arose as a critique of various forms of oppression,Reference Kruks²⁵ it can be considered essentialist because it is based on unifying arguments. Identity politics gives priority to one, stable form of identity and separates it from all other possible forms. Thus, for example, being a third-country national is perceived completely separable from being a woman. On the other hand, there are often generalizations made about various social groups within the realm of identity politics. In this way, social groups are perceived as homogeneous, which leaves room for various forms of marginalization and discrimination. The politics based on the term ‘identity’ is often criticized by political philosophers. Indeed, it is not clearly explained by scholars on which idea of identity the politics of identity is founded.Reference Richardson, Rogers and McCaroll²⁶ Politics of identity only identifies marginalized identities as a result of dominant discourses.

Stychin argues that:

Although Stychin argues that a politics of affinity should in the first instance provide the foundation for a European politics of sexuality, it has greater relevance and should represent the ground for entire EU citizenship policy. The politics of affinity does not only emphasize group-based differences, but the differences among the members of the group as well. Stychin claims that the politics of affinity transcends the self/other dichotomy. According to Van Ham, the politics of affinity denies a ‘parochialized, narrow sense of Self’ (Ref. Reference Van Ham7, p. 70).

The EU Politics as a Reflection of the Politics of Identity

The following lines will argue that EU citizenship politics does not represent the politics of affinity. Secondly, the EU citizenship still does not represent a postnational model of citizenship, because it is tied to nationalist paradigms and stable and fixed identities and borders. Elizabeth Meehan emphasizes the distinction between citizenship and nationality. She argues that:

The traditional account of citizenship has been linked with nationality. However, the supranational political order of the EU requires a new transnational concept of citizenship. A number of critics of European citizenship note that this concept is limited by nationality of the member states. Therefore, European citizenship is a prerogative of the member states. On the other hand, there are some authors who support the opposite point of view – that European citizenship completely separates nationality from citizenship.Reference Horváth²⁹

The concept of the EU citizenship³⁰ is defined by Article 8 of the Treaty of Maastricht: ‘Every person holding the nationality of a Member State shall be a citizen of the Union.’Reference Closa³¹ The Declaration (No. 2) on Nationality of a Member State annexed to the Treaty of Maastricht states: ‘…the question whether an individual possesses the nationality of a Member State shall be settled solely by reference to the national law of the Member State concerned.’³² The Treaty of Amsterdam (1997) states that national citizenship is complemented and not replaced by EU citizenship. The nature of EU citizenship was not changed by the Constitutional Treaty that states that citizenship of the Union is additional to national citizenship (Article 1.10). According to Chryssochoov, the Constitutional Treaty was not a path towards the EU as a postnational entity, because the EU citizens are considered sovereign only as nationals of Member States. However, the Charter of Fundamental Rights extends EU citizenship to legally resident non-nationals. This does not change the exclusive nature of EU citizenship, because it embraces only nationals of the Member States and legally resident non-nationals and excludes all others.

The European Council at its meeting in Tampere, in October 1999, stated that the status of third country nationals who resided legally for a period of time in a Member State and who held a long-term residence permit in that Member State should be equated to the status of Member States nationals. However, the idea of ‘the long term resident’ within the EU law discourse is often complex and vague. The Council Directive 2003/109/EC states: ‘The main criterion for acquiring the status of long-term resident should be the duration of residence in the territory of a Member States. Residence should be both legal and continuous in order to show that the person has put down roots in the country.’³³ It could be asked what ‘putting down roots’ in the new country means. This condition is not only dependent on the person who resides in the new country, but also on how this person is treated by the environment and the national legal framework of that country. According to Article 5³⁴ of the Council Directive 2003/109/EC, Member States will require third-country nationals to provide evidence that they have regular and stable resources that are sufficient to maintain themselves and their families. They should also comply with integration conditions determined by national laws of host Member States. The list of rights guaranteed to third country nationals defined by Article 11 (Equal treatment) is limited. On the other hand, Member States are allowed to restrict those rights with respect to the provisions of paragraph 1.³⁵ It seems that the rights of third-country nationals are dependent mostly on the host Member States.³⁶ ‘Member States may limit equal treatment in respect of social assistance and social protection to core benefits’ (Article 11.4, 2003/109/EC). This leaves room for various forms of discrimination. For example, before taking a decision to expel a long-term resident, Member States take into account the age of the person concerned (Article 12.2b, 2003/109/EC).

The list of rights granted to Union citizenship is extended by the Treaty of Lisbon.³⁷ However, this treaty does not lead to postnational citizenship. Article 8 of the Treaty of Lisbon states: ‘Every national of a Member State shall be a citizen of the Union. Citizenship of the Union shall be additional to national citizenship and shall not replace it.’ Citizenship in the Treaty of Lisbon is ‘articulated as additionality; previously, citizenship of the Union was expressed as being complementary to national citizenship’ (Ref. Reference Shaw38, p. 2) in Article 17 of the Treaty on European Union and in the Treaty of Amsterdam. ‘Expressing Union citizenship as additional to national citizenship was insisted upon by the Member States, in order to reinforce the point that EU citizenship can only add rights, and cannot detract from national citizenship’ (Ref. Reference Shaw38, p. 2). According to Shaw, even the EU's own elections show that the EU citizenship still does not represent a postnational model of citizenship, because they

Kochenov argues that the European citizenship is ‘derivative’, because it is ‘largely left within the virtually exclusive domain of the Member States’ (Ref. Reference Kochenov40, pp. 181–182). The Member States decide who their nationals are. Thus, they decide who gains the status of the EU citizenship.Reference Kochenov⁴¹ This makes the concept of the EU citizenship vague and unclear. Within the legal system of the Member States a unified rule of gaining citizenship does not exist. Consequently, in some Member States it is easy to gain citizenship status, while in others it is very complicated. The differences between the citizenship laws in the various Member States strongly affect EU citizenship. Those differences are based on different legal and political traditions. Consequently, EU citizenship is merely contingent and mostly depends on where the agent lives.

Article 8 of the Treaty of Maastricht defines who are not the EU citizens. Thus, it creates binary oppositions: EU/non-EU, citizen/stranger, we/they and so forth. However, the Treaty of Maastricht does not define who the EU citizens are. It leaves it to the Member States.

The first interpretations of EU citizenship provisions within in the European Court of Justice (ECJ) were very thin.⁴³ Citizens are mostly perceived as ‘economic subjects’ long after the Treaty of Maastricht is established.⁴⁴ Dora Kostakopolou argues a ‘judicial minimalismReference Kostakopolou⁴⁵ during the period 1993–1997’ (Ref. Reference Kostakopolou46, p. 245) She emphasizes that those cases reflect a huge gap between European citizenship norms and reality. The ECJ for the first time used the term ‘citizenship’ to extend the rights of EU citizens in the case Martínez Sala [1998] ECR I-2691.Reference Bulvinaite⁴⁷ According to Hamernik, ‘the revolutionary case or saga about European citizenship starts in the decision of European Court of Justice C-85/96 Martínez Sala v Freistaat Bayern [1998] ECR-I-2691. Martínez Sala was greeted as potential bridge between the orthodoxy of economic rights for economic migrants and the new horizons lit up by comprehensive rights to equal treatment of Union citizens.’⁴⁸ Another significant case that extends the scope of the EU citizenship is Rudy Grzelczyk v. Centre Public d'Aide Sociale d'Ottignies-Louvain-la-Neuve (CPAS) [2001] ECR I-6193. Grzelczyk is a significant judgment because it allows access to social benefits to nationals of other Member States who are lawful residents in that Member State, beyond existing secondary Community law.⁴⁹ Some authors argue that the cases of Grzelczyk and Sala do not represent a substantive change of the exclusionary nature of EU citizenship. Citizens who are economically inactive are required to present proof that they will not depend on the social assistance of the host Member State.⁵⁰ The same can be argued for the cases Trojani⁵¹ and Bidar^52, Reference Göçmen⁵³ Consequently, rights from EU citizenship are not unconditional. This can be perceived in the case of Mr. de Cuyper.⁵⁴ ‘Mr. de Cuyper was a Belgian citizen who was granted unemployment allowances and also was exempted from the condition to be subject to control procedures, however, only if he stays resident in Belgium to monitor his employment and family situation.’⁵⁵ The ECJ in Case C-413/99 Baumbast and R v. Secretary of State for the Home Departement [2002] ECR I-7091 shows the limited scope of EU citizenship. The ECJ ruled⁵⁶:

A citizen of the European Union who no longer enjoys a right of residence as a migrant worker in the host Member State can, as a citizen of the Union, enjoy there a right of residence by direct application of Article 18(1).⁵⁷ The exercise of that right is subject to limitations and conditions referred to in that provision, but the competent the national courts must ensure that those limitations and conditions are applied in compliance with the general principles of community law and, in particular, the principle of proportionality.Reference Bulvinaite⁵⁸

EU Citizenship as a Mental Construct: Mental Maps of Keeping in and Keeping out

In this section a symbolic geography within the European context will be presented. Symbolic geography is founded on mental maps created by various binary oppositions, not geographical borders. According to Todorova,Reference Todorova⁵⁹ politics creates (symbolic) geography. In this way a dialectical process is created, because the politics itself is affected by the mental mapsReference Migdal⁶⁰ it had previously created. This means that mental maps are not just the mere reflection of historical, social and economic factors. The idea of mental maps is closely connected to the idea that the nature of social reality is symbolic. The basic presupposition of this point of view is that a mind-independent reality does not exist.⁶¹ Concepts of ‘mental maps’ and ‘mental cartography’ are formulated within the framework of cognitive psychology. Mental maps represent schemes that gather chaotic impressions and representations. Mental maps are not based on mathematical measures, but take into account social, political and moral parameters. The idea of mental mapping is mostly employed in discourse analysis of representations fixed by language. It identifies a symbolic geography, which is founded on subjective and narrative factors (not only objective and structural).Reference Subotić⁶² This point of view is mostly represented by Anderson,Reference Anderson⁶³ Todorova,Reference Todorova⁵⁹ WolffReference Wolff⁶⁴ and Foucault.Reference Foucault⁶⁵ Identifying mental maps of inclusion and exclusion is significant, because it reflects political instrumentalization, which relies on power relations. This point of view leads to an awareness that political and legal discourses should not be essentialized. Mental maps create a symbolic logic of keeping in and keeping out within the European context. If this logic is identified and overcome it can create another form of citizenship perceived as a mental construct. Citizenship as a mental construct is based on the radicalization of the idea that the ‘concepts by which people define who they are – in which they articulate their sense of identity – are all of them concepts without sharp borders, and hence cannot provide a basis for sharp demarcations such as political boundaries between states’ (Ref. Reference O'Neill66, p. 78). This form of citizenship presupposes a contingent, porous and shifting concept of borders. However, the EU citizenship is still far away from this perspective, because it is fixed by borders. There are some paradoxes that can be considered as consequences of the EU citizenship policy that is based on the modernist notion of (essentialist) identity and a number of binary oppositions. Those examples show that the EU citizenship is still closely tied to nationality and the matter of the Member States’ laws and policies.

Romanian president Traian Basescu promised hundreds of thousands of Romanian passports to Moldovans. Around 120,000 Moldovans already have Romanian passports and another 800,000 are waiting to have their applications for Romanian passports approved.⁶⁷ Although Romanians and Moldovans live in two separate countries, Romanian president Traian Basescu emphasizes that they represent one nation.⁶⁷ However, according to polls two thirds of the Moldovans want to be part of the EU and they do not support reunification with Romania. Only 2% identify themselves as Romanian.⁶⁷ Spain granted permanent residency and the right to work to 600,000 irregular migrants. Poland offered citizenship to one million ethnic Poles in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine. Finally, Warsaw feared the possible complications in joining the EU's Schengen zone. Thus, ethnic Poles were granted a ‘Polish Card’ in 2007.⁶⁸

The EUDO Citizenship Observatory reports that Slovakia and Hungary transformed their citizenship laws on 26 May, 2010. ‘In Hungary an overwhelming majority of parliamentarians voted for offering persons with Hungarian ancestry access to Hungarian citizenship without asking them to renounce their present citizenship and without requiring that they take up residence in Hungary. The addressees of this new opportunity are up to 2.5 million Hungarian linguistic minorities living mostly in Slovakia, Romania and the Serb province of Vojvodina.’⁶⁹

Some other EU member states also offer citizenship status to persons whose ancestors were citizens. According to Bieber, those citizenship laws support ethno-nationalist perspectives.⁷⁰ They are based on the idea of citizenship tied to ethnic identity. However, in reality, this attempt is often subverted. Ethnicity and patriotism are often not motives for those who accept citizenship status. Many Bosnian citizens who accepted Croatian citizenship (before visa-free travel was granted to Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2010) did not consider themselves Croatians, but saw an opportunity to receive a passport that could help them travel in the EU countries. In this way, a distinction between Bosnian citizens who hold dual citizenship (both Bosnian and Croatian) and those who do not is formed. This distinction forms a number of binary oppositions such as: mobile/immobile, national/transnational, Bosnian/Croatian, non-EU/EU, and so forth.

A similar argument can be made about Macedonians who are granted Bulgarian citizenship. Most of them do not consider themselves Bulgarians, but took the opportunity of receiving a Bulgarian passport. Although Macedonia is part of the EU visa liberalization programme, it is not a EU Member State. Consequently, holding a Bulgarian passport certainly means more rights. However, the consequence of this situation is numerous distinctions and hierarchies between Macedonian citizens. Thus, a new symbolic geography is formed based on those binary oppositions, not geographical borders.