European citizenship versus national citizenship
Author | Camelia Nicoleta Olteanu |
Position | Lector univ. Drd., Universitatea Spiru Haret, Facultatea de Stiine Juridice si Administrative, Brasov |
Pages | 238-242 |
EUROPEAN CITIZENSHIP VERSUS NATIONAL CITIZENSHIP
Olteanu Camelia Nicoleta
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∗∗
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Abstract
European citizenship is a unique creation of an organization that isn’t in the classical
patterns. It’s the first citizenship interdependent of other nationalities. Created for
developing a European identity among 12 nations, the concept of citizenship must adapt to
the new reality. In the presence of 27 state members and millions of immigrants, that wish to
accede to this citizenship, the European organization asks itself about the future of the
citizenship.
Key words: Citizen, national citizenship, European citizenship, state, sovereignty.
Introduction
If the notion of citizenship finds a resort in the internal right, the same affirmation
cannot be made for European citizenship. The notion of European citizenship should evolve
around the rights and obligations of the European citizens. We could consider that this
involves, for European citizens, resembling rights, if not identical, with those traditionally
admitted for the nationals in the internal juridical order. These rights correspond, in a
certain manner, with the special rights acknowledged between 1975 – 1985 for the
inhabitants of the states members of the European Community.
The term citizenship comes from Greek, being taken from the European modern
languages through Latin, knowing thus a new development, especially related to the
association with civic virtue. In the classical tradition of civic virtues different thinkers and
politicians have meditated during history upon the concept of citizenship… Thus,
Machiavelli understood by citizenship the love for freedom but also the citizen’s permanent
obligation to acquit themselves of their responsibilities, obligation imposed by education,
religion, or by consequent sanctions, Montesquieu saw in the civic virtues of the citizens a
source of stability of the state, Rousseau considered that liberty assumes civic virtues, but
also the involvement in the public issues and taking political decisions – the citizens were
seen as such as long as they took part in the sovereign power., Aristotle in his work The
Politics, stresses that a person is not a citizen only by his residence, because also the foreign
and the slaves have residences. Neither is it a consequence of the right to be in justice as a
plaintiff or culprit, the residence and juridical actions can belong to people who are not
citizens.
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The term of citizenship has reaffirmed with the French Revolution through The
Universal Declaration of the Citizen and Human Rights in which are reaffirmed the natural,
inalienable and sacred rights of humans.
The notion of citizenship, in a wide sense, has its origins in the internal rights of each
state, its evolution being undisputed, having as a start point the Greek fortresses or the
Roman ones, to which they continue to relate. It is affirmable that the societies and their
∗
Lector univ. drd., Universitatea Spiru Haret, Facultatea de Ştiinţe Juridice şi Administrative, Braşov, email:
olteanucami@yahoo.com
1
Aristotle, Poilitics, Antet P ublishing, 1996, page 72 , edition that renews the work Politics, from National
Culture Editure in 1924.
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