Consequences of Citizenship in Europe -
Are New Layers of Complexity Emerging?
Edoardo Chiti
Professor, at the University of Lecce, Italy
The hypothesis at the basis of this paper is that the ongoing process of internationalisation of public law, and in particular the gradual development of a body of “global administrative law”, represent a factor of significant complication of the substantial content of citizenship in Europe. It is argued that a discussion on citizenship in contemporary Europe cannot be satisfactorily developed with exclusive reference to the relationships between the different experiences of the European States and between them and the experience of the Union, but it also needs to take into account the developments taking place in the wider “global legal space”, in which the European legal order finds its anchorage. The paper therefore aims at clarifying how the emergence of global administrative law affects the content of citizenship in Europe, what categories may describe such influence, what ambivalences are hidden in these developments. As an introduction to the subject, the paper does not go through a wide set of case studies, with the view of delineating a taxonomy of the influences of global administrative law on the content of citizenship in Europe and reflecting on their normative implications. Rather, the paper seeks to identify some noteworthy developments of the subject and to delineate the questions raised by these developments, with the purpose of opening a discussion on what may result to be a significant field of research.
