2. The comparative debate: some critics

In this section, I provide a brief synthesis of the contemporary debate on European citizenship. The aim is to outline the argumentative foundations upon which prevailings understandings of both European and national citizenship are constucted, and to critically engage with these foundations.

As noted in the introduction, the academic discussion on European citizenship has chiefly assumed a comparative character, with European citizenship defined through the paradigm of national citizenship. This comparative trajectory follows naturally from the enduring influence of national political communities and the contractual frameworks that sustain them. To date, these have represented the most successful and stable forms of political agreement – structures capable of binding individuals together within a framework of trust and solidarity.Footnote ⁷ Since national citizenship embodies the normative conditions that define individuals’ roles within the national polity, it exerts significant influence over the conceptualisation and theorisation of citizenship. As a result, any legal or political status aspiring to be recognised as citizenship seems compelled to replicate the form and content of the national model.

The extensive scholarly debate on European citizenship can be synthesised into three principal perspectives.

The first perspective holds that European citizenship does not amount to fully fledged citizenship.Footnote ⁸ In this view, the rights European citizenship confers – most notably free movement and limited political rights at the European level – are substantially weaker than those attached to national citizenship. National citizenship is embedded within a robust political community and supported by cooperative schemes that generate solidaristic obligations among members. European citizenship, by contrast, is insufficient in cultivating comparable political or affective ties among Europeans and fails to foster allegiance to a shared European identity. European citizenship is a misnomer: a legal label describing a limited set of entitlements that, at best, supplement national citizenship by addressing some of its deficiencies.

The second perspective adopts a more teleological stance arguing that European citizenship is destined to evolve and eventually replace national citizenship: it will gradually replicate national rights and duties at the European level.Footnote ⁹ While acknowledging that European citizenship currently lacks the political and solidaristic bonds characteristic of national citizenship, proponents of this account maintain that such bonds will emerge over time. They interpret this process as a move away from a state-centred conception of citizenship – if not yet the end of national citizenship.

The third perspective situates European citizenship within a framework of overlapping jurisdictions and multilevel constitutionalism.Footnote ¹⁰ It interprets European citizenship as one among several statuses coexisting within a multilayered polity. In this configuration, national and European citizenship are not regarded as competing but as complementary, the statehood of the Member States and national citizenship are not called into question, but a new constitutional layer establishing a complementary public authority has been added for matters of common interests.

Despite offering three distinct interpretations, the perspectives analysed assign a predominant role to the normative model provided by national citizenship.

The first perspective does it explicitly: European citizenship cannot compete with national citizenship because the rights it confers are insufficient to recreate the normative conditions that generate belonging, protection and solidarity among citizens. The second approach appears to distance itself from the national framework by anticipating its eventual replacement by European citizenship. Yet, what is envisioned is not the emergence of an entirely new model of citizenship, rather the replication of the national scheme at the European level. European citizenship is expected to encompass the same rights and duties as national citizenship, thereby reproducing the same bonds of solidarity and loyalty that characterise national political communities. The third account ostensibly rejects any ontological hierarchy between national and European citizenship. It presents national citizenship as one among several statuses reflecting the multiple affiliations of citizens within a multilayered polity.Footnote ¹¹ Nevertheless, subnational and supranational communities are not fully autonomous, insofar as their existence remains anchored in the normative and material structures of the national community. Article 20(2) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), for instance, explicitly states that ‘Citizenship of the Union shall be additional to and not replace national citizenship’. In this sense, the national polity – and the citizenship it produces – continues to serve as the foundational layer upon which all other levels of political affiliation depend.

While reaffirming the invaluable contribution of the comparative method in highlighting the conceptual differences between national citizenship and the status recognised by the Treaties, this article moves beyond this framework to advance a deeper understanding of how social relationships function within the European legal order.

This broader inquiry calls for a reflection on the juristic concepts through which law translates social relations into normative structures. Juristic concepts are tools that simplify and organise the myriad of normative dimensions and ties together forming a constitutional order. They are intellectual devices that compress complexity. Citizenship, for instance, designates the bundle of normative relationships established among the individuals of a specific constitutional order, which define their role both within that order and in relation to the state. In other words, citizenship is the shorthand we use to denote the normative bonds between the state and its members.

For juristic concepts to continue functioning as simplifying tools, they must remain coherent with the normative dimension they aim to portray. These normative ties and dimensions, however, are not set in stone. On the contrary, they are highly dynamic, as they filter the complex interplay between facts and norms that characterises political communities. This means that citizenship as well is always exposed to change. If the coherence between the concept of citizenship and the normative dimension it is intended to reflect is not critically examined, the concept risks misrepresenting – rather than simplifying – the normative framework that constitutes and governs the state–individual relationship.

The comparative debate presupposes an unduly static understanding of both national and European citizenship. First, national citizenship is assumed to be conceptually stable and is therefore used as a benchmark for evaluating European citizenship. Yet, as I will argue in the next section, citizenship is inherently subject to ongoing transformation. Citizenship synthesises the relationship between the state and individuals and ensures the penetration of the fundamental principles that constitute it into social relations. The state–individual relationship is constantly subjected to internal and external pressures that may alter or redefine it. In most cases, the normative power of those fundamental principles, along with the counteraction of constitutional forces, restores the constitutive equilibrium. Instead, when external or internal forces affect the constitutive principles and the constitutional order does not react, the alteration might create a fracture between the actual regulation of social relations and the representation we give of it. I argue that the integration of European law into national legal orders has opened up a cleavage between the representation we give of the state-individual relationship through citizenship and the concrete regulation of it. Second, prevailing evaluations of European citizenship tend to focus narrowly on the rights enshrined in Articles 20 and 21 TFEU – namely, free movement of persons and European political rights.Footnote ¹² However, accession to the Union also entails recognition of a set further group of rights: the four fundamental freedoms.Footnote ¹³ These freedoms are the constitutive rules of the Single Market,Footnote ¹⁴ the protection of which remains the principal – albeit not exclusive – objective of the EU. Although formally excluded from the purview of European citizenship, these freedoms should considerably influence the conceptualisation of the relationship between citizens and the European Union. Excluding them from the analysis of European citizenship would mean setting aside one of the most salient normative dimensions of this newly established supranational legal order.

The aim of this investigation is to reconsider the evaluation of national and European citizenship by analysing the current normative regulation of rights. This approach allows us to assess whether national citizenship coherently reflects the relationship it is meant to describe – namely, the relationship between the state and its citizens, founded on the principles of social democracy – and to examine the role played by the rights deriving from the European Treaties. In order to delve into this analysis, I will proceed as follows. First, I will reflect on the concept of citizenship and its dynamic nature. Second, I will explain how the transformation of national citizenship is embedded within a broader process of constitutional reordering and power restructuring set in motion by the process of European integration. Taken together, these two steps form the theoretical foundation of the concept of European material citizenship.

3. The concept of citizenship and its transformation

Transformation is not alien to citizenship. At a very abstract level, citizenship refers to the relationship between a polity – more paradigmatically the state – and individuals.Footnote ¹⁵ This relationship is not a spontaneous one; rather, it carries a strong normative connotation,Footnote ¹⁶ as it originates from an array of written and unwritten rules that constitute and define it, justifying the existence of the political community and legitimising the exercise of power. When we use the term citizenship, we indirectly refer to these rules, which together form the normative ideal that inspires, constitutes and governs the state–individual relationship, thereby shaping the constitutional order.

The content of citizenship synthesises these rules and operationalises the normative ideal. Through the exercise of citizenship rights, the foundational principles constituting the relationship between the state and individuals permeate and structure social, political and economic relations, thereby reinforcing citizens’ attachment to the underlying political community. The rights and duties that citizenship recognises are nodes in a complex normative network that governs citizens’ interests while keeping them engaged in and oriented toward the community. The design and structure of this network are not accidental; they delineate a normative pattern that gives concrete expression to the foundational ideal underpinning citizenship. While this structure retains a measure of normative plasticity – enabling the recalibration of rights protection in response to social transformation and the evolution of the constitutional framework – alterations affecting its constitutive elements inevitably disrupt the internal coherence of citizenship and its original normative orientation. Should this deviation persist, it would call for a reconsideration of the meaning of citizenship.

For citizenship to infuse the constitutional order with the normative ideal, the exercise of citizenship rights must remain coherent with the principles they are designed to uphold. Yet this coherence is constantly challenged, as the normative conditions must reckon with the dynamic nature of the state–individual relationship. This relationship is inherently exposed to ongoing tensions and fluctuations driven by the dialectic between power and society: forces arising both within and outside the polity attempt to modify and adjust the structure of power to serve their interests and reorganise society around a new set of principles. Depending on their scope and extent, such modifications to power structures can alter the exercise of rights, potentially leading to a departure from the foundational principles they are meant to uphold. Often, this departure is counterbalanced by reactive forces, whose intervention reaffirms the soundness and ordering power of the underlying normative ideal. Conversely, if the coherence of the normative conditions is affected and no counterbalancing forces react, the modifications will open a cleavage between the normative ideal and its execution. In the long run, a persistent detachment between the normative ideal and its execution causes the transformation of the normative ideal, of the underlying state–individual relationship, and, thus, of citizenship.

The dialectic between power and society can produce a variety of outcomes. A closer look at the recent historical evolution of the state–individual relationship in Europe offers a useful illustration of this dynamic. The normative ideal that informed the relationship between the state and individuals following the revolutions of the 18^th and 19^th centuries is commonly known as Liberal Democracy. This paradigm was grounded in the principles of individual freedom, representative democracy and the rule of law. State power was legitimised as a means of securing individual liberty and protecting private property, primarily through democratic participation and the authority of legal norms. In this context, citizenship endowed individuals with civil and political rights, enabling them both to claim protection for their freedoms and to participate in decision-making processes.

As it is known, the liberal-democratic ideal did not survive the series of profound crises that marked the first half of the 20^th century – epitomised by the socioeconomic turmoil of the interwar period.Footnote ¹⁷ The power–society crises led to a reconfiguration of the principles underlying political, social and economic relations. An accumulation and centralisation of state powers undermined democratic governance, placing the state apparatus in a position of hierarchical supremacy. This supremacy was maintained through the systematic dismantling of individual freedoms. The state increasingly intervened in individuals’ lives and choices, assuming an overtly totalitarian character. Deprived of their liberties and stripped of agency over their political community’s destiny, citizens were reduced to subjects.

The catastrophic consequences of authoritarianism and its aggressive foreign policies – culminating in the Second World War – prompted a further reconfiguration of the relationship between the state and individuals. The power–society dialectic recast the political paradigm of the nation-state, grounding state–individual relations in a new set of constitutional principles.Footnote ¹⁸ The post-war nation-state rebuilt its relationship with individuals on the principles of Social Democracy. The social-democratic normative ideal is made of ‘political bonds rendering all members of the political community equally free. Bonds that rely on the understanding of the political community as a scheme of cooperation based on reciprocity giving rise to solidaristic obligations and entitlements’.Footnote ¹⁹ While reaffirming the core liberal-democratic principles of democracy and the rule of law, the post-war nation-state embraced a more ambitious objective: securing the welfare of all citizens. This endeavour entailed elevating social rights to the status of constitutional essentials and reconsidering the limits of private property in light of broader social obligations. Within this renewed constitutional framework, national citizenship came to encompass civil, political and social rights, ensuring that their exercise coherently served social-democratic goals. It established a complex web of reciprocal ties that engaged citizens in socioeconomic cooperation, fostered trust and solidarity, and encouraged political participation. In this context, citizens were expected not only to influence the democratic process, but also to benefit from a system of social protection designed to operate independently of market logic.Footnote ²⁰

When the contemporary debate evaluates the status defined by the Treaties as citizenship using national citizenship as its benchmark, it is implicitly referring to the national status that crystallised from the ashes of the Second World War – namely, the one inspired by the social-democratic normative ideal. The comparison reveals that European and national citizenship embody distinct normative visions. The rights to free movement and political participation at the European level are primarily designed to promote the integration of the single market and participation in decision-making processes oriented toward that same objective. At present, European citizenship falls short of establishing a solid democratic political community grounded in solidaristic bonds. The rights it confers may be seen as supplementary to those granted by national citizenship; however, this supplementary character has faded over the course of European integration.

Despite originating from a separate legal order, all the rights enshrined in the Treaties increasingly interact with and merge into the individuals’ legal sphere, which remains a single locus of entitlement. The coexistence of rights originating from two distinct legal orders in individuals’legal sphere – each pursuing different normative ideals, such as social democracy and market integration – is only tenable as long as one normative framework is subordinated to the other. Initially, the European project was conceived as instrumental to social democracy. Its creation formed part of the broader political effort to restore the legitimacy of the nation-state.Footnote ²¹ The European Community acted as an external enabler, fostering peaceful economic exchange and providing states with the means to generate and redistribute wealth. The primary constitutional relationship remained the one established between the state and individuals, while the European Community occupied a supportive and subordinate role.Footnote ²² Rights stemming from the Treaties were interpreted through the prism of the social-democratic ideal. Over time, however, the integration process has carved out a more prominent and autonomous role for EU institutions within the constitutional relationship between state and individuals.Footnote ²³ These institutions are no longer merely external buttresses; they now play a direct and substantial role in regulating social relations. As the EU has evolved into a fully fledged, constitutional actor, the distinction between national and European legal orders has progressively eroded.Footnote ²⁴ European rights have increasingly interacted with national rights, generating new conflicts of justice within individuals’ legal sphere. Gradually, yet decisively, European rights have penetrated and reshaped the network of normative relationships traditionally established through the exercise of national citizenship promoting the ascendancy of market rationality.Footnote ²⁵

The exercise of national citizenship rights no longer reflects the normative ideal that originally inspired the state–individual relationship, simply because that constitutional relationship no longer exists. Political, economic and social relations unfold within a far more complex constitutional framework, in which European institutions play a fundamental role. We cannot attempt to simplify this unique constitutional geometry by tracing an imaginary line of separation within the regulatory framework that gives execution to the normative ideal that constitutes and inspires it.

To grasp the full significance of the transformation of national citizenship, one must engage with the broader process of constitutional reordering that has recast European institutions from external enablers into fully fledged constitutional actors. It is within this context that I justify the attribution of the qualifier material to the new form of citizenship.

4. Power, rights, citizenship: a material interplay

The penetration of EU law into national legal orders, the alterations in the exercise of citizens’ rights, and the resulting transformation of citizenship could not have occurred without restructuring the boundaries that once isolated national political entities while preserving their constitutional identity.

The transformation of citizenship reveals first and foremost a modification of the normative ideal that constitutes and rules the relationship between states and individuals. Yet, the alteration of the conditions governing this relationship may also indicate a more profound structural transformation of the relationship itself. European Material Citizenship embodies the replacement of the social-democratic normative ideal within a newly established constitutional geometry encompassing European institutions, Member States and citizens.

The transformation of the normative ideal and the reconfiguration of the constitutional geometry are the outcome of the combined operation of the forces of the material constitution – namely political unity, bearing institutions, social relations and fundamental political objectives.Footnote ²⁶ Standing underneath the formal constitution, these forces shape the constitutional order driving it towards the accomplishment of the political objectives. The material forces keep the constitution alive, preserving and renewing its order; nevertheless, they may also diverge from this path, fostering disorganisation and resistance to the formal constitution. Tracing the trajectory of these forces presents a considerable analytical challenge. However, their effects become more discernible in moments when they act in opposition to the formal constitution.

A successful process of constitutional reordering certainly involves, at various levels, the intervention of all the material forces mentioned above. Bearing this in mind, it is possible – at least to some extent – to observe the impact of a single force on the constitutional system and to isolate the effects it produces on the constitutional order. In what follows, I will focus on one material force – political unity – with the aim of tracing its influence on the exercise of rights and the concept of citizenship.Footnote ²⁷

As Marco Goldoni and Michael Wilkinson remark, the constitution exists as a political unity, not as an abstract set of norms.Footnote ²⁸ Political unity is a process of becoming, referring to the historical integration of a community through the occurrence of some immaterial and material circumstances. For instance, the process of modern constitutional ordering – and formation of modern political unity – was inaugurated by the affirmation of the autonomy and primacy of the political from the theological domain. This affirmation was made possible by the emergence of specific material conditions: namely, the political integration of a collectivity within a given territory, and the political and economic organisation (and reorganisation) of social relations across time and space.Footnote ²⁹

Political unity can take different forms. It may materialise as a nation-state, a federal state, a multinational federation, an inter-state confederation, a supranational union, or even as imperial domination.Footnote ³⁰ Each form reflects a distinct path of institutional and societal development, and therefore a distinct form of constitutional ordering. Undoubtedly, the nation-state has been the most paradigmatic form of political unity. It has established a bounded community of belonging, asserted itself as politically sovereign, externally recognised as the sole legitimate subject of international relations, and materially grounded in capitalist development.Footnote ³¹

However paradigmatic the nation-state has been as a form of political unity, its very existence can be questioned today. Political unity embodies a path of institutional and social development that is naturally inclined to evolution; the nation-state makes no exception. At a certain point in the process of European integration, the political unity of the nation-state underwent reorganisation. It redrew its geometry, restructured social, economic and political relations across a much broader territory, fractured the unitary character of sovereignty, and undermined the primacy of the political domain. This reorganisation is intrinsically connected to the transformation of the form of the state. As Christopher Bickerton argues, the process of European integration has led to a shift from one form of state – the nation-state – to another: the Member State. To quote Bickerton:

Member State distinctiveness lies precisely in ‘the practice of limiting power and, therefore, citizens’ claims through commitments and obligations beyond the state’.Footnote ³³ European rules limit national power from becoming an external constraint upon popular will. Central to this transformation, Bickerton notes, is the relativisation of the state–society relationship. While in the nation-state this relationship was the fundamental source of political legitimacy, ‘national governments of Member States understand their power and identity as dependent upon their belonging to a wider community that determines their decision-making process, shapes their institutional apparatus and provides them a distinctive social purpose’.Footnote ³⁴ The Member State justifies its actions less through its connection to its own society and more through its participation in a community of states. According to Bickerton, the shift to Member Statehood was the solution found by European states to manage the crises of the capital–labour compromiseFootnote ³⁵ in the late Seventies,Footnote ³⁶ a crisis of the material engine supporting the integrity and legitimacy of the Social Democratic State.Footnote ³⁷ In this way, national governments established an external limit to redefine the role of the state in economic and social life, while also curbing public expectations.

The creation of an external constraint on the popular will – and the subsequent withdrawal from social democracy – did not occur through formal constitutional modification. It has taken place through the slow and steady action of the material forces. With regard to political unity, the shift to Member Statehood marked a dramatic departure from the nation-state model, enabling the alteration of normative standards regulating social relations. First, this external constraint has fractured the unitary character of sovereignty. Power is no longer exercised on behalf of citizens and in accordance with the underlying political pact that once legitimised it. Sovereignty is now conceived as shared power.Footnote ³⁸ National governments formally ask to be vested with power by citizens, while justifying its exercise referring to the obligations stemming from the Treaties and to the duties of allegiance they owe to the supranational community of states. Second, the legitimisation of this external constraint has conferred upon European institutions the exclusive authority to regulate economic relations. Aimed at creating and securing the internal market, EU law has fostered the reorganisation and integration of economic activity across a wider space – placing it beyond the political control of national citizens and the redistributive constraints once imposed by social democracy. Third, the rules ensuring the functioning of the single market are elevated to constitutional essentials undermining the supremacy of the political domain and weakening social objectives.

As a consequence, social relations now unfold within a broader space – coinciding with the European market – and under a restructured constitutional geometry encompassing European institutions, Member States, and citizens. Within this new constitutional arrangement, European institutions have assumed a dominant role in the regulation of social relations, while the state – now Member State – has abdicated its role as the primary institution responsible for protecting fundamental rights and citizens’ well-being. The Member State has become a kind of intermediary body between the claims raised by citizens – still grounded in the social-democratic compromise, which formally remains intact – and the obligations arising from the Treaties. Relentlessly, this institutional transformation has enhanced the supremacy of economic rights to the detriment of social and political rights, thereby enabling the substitution of the normative conditions that once underpinned social democracy. The legal apparatus originally designed to operationalise social-democracy and supported by the capital–labour compromise has been reconfigured to serve the implementation of the single market – the material engine of the new political unity. The relationship between European institutions, Member States, and citizens is now constituted and governed primarily to safeguard the integrity of the single market.

The reorganisation of political unity and the transformation of citizenship are closely intertwined. Intuitively, if national citizenship once synthesised the regulation of social relations within the nation-state–individual relationship, that same status cannot reflect the crystallisation of a new political unity within the more complex relationship among European institutions, Member States, and citizens. Nor can national citizenship be preserved simply by complementing it with the status defined by the Treaties as European citizenship.

This intuition can be demonstrated by linking the reorganisation of power to the shift toward Member Statehood and the effects it has produced for the exercise of national citizenship rights. Ultimately, the way power is organised and exercised is not uninfluential for rights distribution and exercise. Changes in power dynamics affect rights. Thomas H. Marshall made this connection explicit in Citizenship and Social Class. Tracing the development of social-democratic citizenship in England, Marshall offered an evolutionary analysis of rights, famously distinguishing among civil, political and social rights. According to him, the development of each type of right corresponded to the evolution of a specific institution. In earlier times, he wrote, civil, political and social rights were ‘wound into a single thread … the rights were blended because the institutions were amalgamated’.Footnote ³⁹ Later, a dual process of geographical fusion and functional separation of powers reshaped access to these institutions, allowing civil, political and social rights to differentiate and emancipate from a previously indistinct bloc.Footnote ⁴⁰ In short, Marshall argued that the differentiation and development of citizenship rights stemmed from changes in access to institutions, which in turn reflected shifts in the structure of power.Footnote ⁴¹ The configuration of power reflects and generates the structure of rights, insofar as rights are the outcome of formal and informal political pressure exerted by subordinated or competing social groups seeking to modify existing power arrangements.Footnote ⁴² These struggles are expressions of opposition to pre-existing frameworks governing power and social relations. Political pressure, channelled through the material forces, inevitably affects the structure of power: it establishes a new legitimacy by introducing limitations or transformations that respond to new social claims. This process results in the recognition of new rights or the reconfiguration of existing ones, in order to ensure that access to power and the regulation of social relations align with the expectations of those who have successfully mobilised.Footnote ⁴³

The dynamic that links social fight to power transformation and rights differentiation never comes to an end. What Marshall described is not temporally or geographically circumscribed to a specific polity. Rather, it reflects the internal dialectic between power and society – a tension that material constitutional forces either channel into constitutional transformation or resist in defence of the existing order. European integration reaffirms this dynamic and highlights the role of material forces in shaping the legal and institutional architecture of the polity.

Viewed through the lens of political unity, the shift to Member Statehood has produced substantial modifications in the organisation of power, as well as formal and informal changes to the criteria governing access to both national and European institutions. New rights – those conferred by the Treaties – have interfered with national rights, while the exercise of national rights has been revised. In particular, the external constraint on popular will has been implemented through the geographical fusion of judicial power and the geographical separation of legislative power. These structural adjustments have significantly influenced the exercise of rights. The judicial fusion has paved the way for the elevation of a core group of European rights – the four fundamental freedoms – to the level of a new canon of constitutionality, often at the expense of social rights. Conversely, the separation of legislative power has drastically reduced citizens’ control over the decision-making process, thereby weakening political rights. Civil, political and social rights of national citizenship are still recognised, but their exercise is increasingly constrained by the interference of European rights and obligations, which aim to align the regulation of social relations with a new normative ideal: the integrity of the single market.

To summarise, the regulation of social relations in Europe depends on a far more complex normative web, where national and European rights interact. This complexity mirrors a transformation in the organisation and structure of power – one driven by the gradual intervention of the material constitutional forces responding to the legitimacy crisis of the late 1970s. This transformation has established a new source of legitimacy, converting European institutions into fully fledged constitutional players. European Material Citizenship synthesises the normative conditions governing social relations within an emerging constitutional order – one encompassing European institutions, Member States, and citizens, and cemented by the protection of the single market.

5. From power to rights transformation

The objective of this section is to elucidate how the reorganisation of the nation-state’s political unity – within the framework of Member Statehood – and the accompanying transformation of state power have affected the exercise of national rights, thereby redefining the meaning of citizenship. This approach makes it possible to trace the transcendence of the supposed boundary between national and European citizenship by focusing on the interaction between national and European rights. Ultimately, it helps articulate the normative ideal that governs social relations within the renewed constitutional geometry linking European institutions, Member States, and citizens, thereby providing the normative justification for the concept of European Material Citizenship.

A close examination of the integration process reveals a striking parallel with the dynamic described by T. H. Marshall in Citizenship and Social Class. The emergence of an external constraint on popular will has materialised over time through two interconnected developments: the geographical fusion of judicial authority and the dual separation of legislative power. The former has profoundly shaped the evolution of economic and social rights, while the latter has redefined the exercise of political rights.

6. European material citizenship: content, features and perspectives

The normative analysis of how the transformation of state powers has affected the exercise of rights reveals a profound reconfiguration of the principles governing social relations in Europe. On one hand, the elevation of the four economic freedoms to the rank of fundamental and indivisible rights has weakened the constitutional position of social rights. Although social rights remain recognised and protected at the national level, when they come into conflict with economic freedoms, the interpretative practice often assigns greater weight to the latter, subjecting the former to a demanding process of justification.Footnote ⁹⁰ Rights long deemed essential to fostering solidarity and ensuring substantive equality are increasingly treated as ordinary, secondary rights within a new hierarchy of values. On the other hand, citizens’ capacity to influence decision-making or to exert internal political pressure has been significantly constrained. At the European level, the Union’s distinctive institutional architecture renders such influence difficult: key decisions are made within non-representative bodies in which citizens play only an indirect role. At the national level, the refusal of governments to assume accountability for European decisions – and the broader institutional tendency to present those decisions as both inevitable and necessary for advancing the national interest – further weakens political rights.

If economic freedoms are elevated to constitutional essentials, while social rights are continually questioned and political participation progressively weakened, then the normative foundations of social relations have clearly departed from the social-democratic ideal. The rights that once composed national citizenship – civil, political, and social – were designed as indivisible: only their coordinated regulation could sustain the social-democratic order. Yet the delegation of regulatory authority over economic rights to European institutions, combined with the creation of distinct European political rights, fragmented this unity and disrupted the delicate normative balance that once animated the social-democratic project.

Initially, European integration appeared to enrich citizens’ legal sphere. The Treaties conferred new rights – the four economic freedoms, the free movement of persons, and the European political rights defined in Articles 20 and 21 TFEU – supplementing the national bundle of civil, political, and social rights. Over time, however, the multilevel narrative lost its coherence. The supposed dividing line between national and European citizenship has effectively disappeared. As power has been restructured, rights have followed.

Undeniably, citizens continue to benefit from the opportunities offered by the internal market and free movement. The right to move freely within the Union represents, for many, an emancipatory force that allows individuals to transcend the constraints of birthplace and nationality.Footnote ⁹¹ As economic actors – consumers, traders, entrepreneurs – citizens enjoy robust protection under the economic freedoms. Equally noteworthy are the Union’s contributions to the protection of civil rights. As Elise Muir notes, EU equality law has undergone a process of constitutionalisation, strengthening protection against discrimination based on religion, gender, sexual identity, and orientation.Footnote ⁹² Other policy domains – environmental protection, digital transition, and consumer safety – further illustrate the Union’s capacity to advance fundamental rights through legislative integration.Footnote ⁹³

Nonetheless, European rights have not come without cost. What began as an additional and complementary layer of rights has progressively reshaped the exercise of national rights themselves. From the state’s perspective, the free movement of persons, while emancipatory for individuals, has generated conflicts of justice and placed strain on welfare systems.Footnote ⁹⁴ Similarly, the protection of the free movement of goods, services, capital, and persons conceals an alternative resolution of the capital–labour conflict: citizens who participate in market exchange have more chances to receive the highest level of constitutional protection, whereas those unable to do so are left at the margins of social progress. Economic rights have advanced, while social rights have retreated. Moreover, European political rights – though formally recognised – remain largely weak, reflecting the diminished capacity of citizens to shape the economic direction of their polities. The economic realm has been progressively withdrawn from democratic deliberation, becoming, in effect, a domain of the undecidable.Footnote ⁹⁵

Within this new configuration, European Material Citizenship captures the reunification of both national rights – civil, political and social – and those deriving from the Treaties: the free movement of persons, the European political rights, and the four economic freedoms. In this constellation, the economic freedoms occupy a central, constitutive role: they operationalise the integrity of the internal market and function as the gravitational centre of the European constitutional order. When other rights come into conflict with them, the latter are subjected to a demanding process of justification, which effectively grants economic freedoms a normative pre-eminence. In most cases, the rights in conflict are social rights – historical counterparts and, at times, antagonists of private property and entrepreneurial freedoms. The resolution of this tension is not predetermined. Both economic freedoms and social rights are subject to a balancing process, as each is recognised as a value worthy of protection within the European legal order. Yet, because this balancing exercise is centred on the preservation of the internal market’s integrity, the interpretative outcome often accords comparatively greater weight to economic freedoms. Social rights, by contrast, are subjected to a more demanding process of justification, which – given their reliance on collective and redistributive aims – renders their protection more contingent. They may emerge as either prevailing or secondary in individual cases, but what matters for the broader constitutional analysis is the interpretative framework through which these conflicts are mediated.

European Material Citizenship serves as the intellectual tool through which this interaction can be understood. It synthesises the complex relationship between national and European rights within a single, organic status whose coherence is ensured by market integrity. Market integrity is the centre of gravity of the constitutional relationship linking European institutions, Member States, and citizens. It functions as the prism through which social relations are interpreted and conflicts resolved. At once the horizon of social progress and the material engine of integration, it defines the parameters of legitimacy within the European constitutional order.

Market integrity does not prevent the European Union from intervening in the social sphere or from promoting social rights.Footnote ⁹⁶ Nonetheless, such intervention still derives much of its coherence from the overarching principle of market integrity. Social protection is therefore possible, but only to the extent that it reinforces – rather than challenges – the functioning of the internal market. While preserving the integrity of the internal market, the EU legal order retains a degree of flexibility to engage in the social and political spheres. Yet a sustained and coherent intervention aimed at strengthening social protection or political participation remains constrained by constitutional limits. As explained earlier in this article, the transformation of political unity – from the form of the nation-state to that of the Member State – was driven by the withdrawal of the material constitutional forces from the social-democratic settlement, which had lost its normative force following the crisis of the capital–labour compromise in the late 1970s. The material shift toward market integrity appeared to offer a solution: curbing citizens’ social expectations, reasserting political control over capital through supranational market regulation, and reorganising social relations under a more coherent normative framework.

European states thus coherently embraced market integrity both as a mechanism to contain social demands and as a strategy to discipline capital – much as they had once turned to social democracy to resolve the legitimacy crisis of the post-war era. Importantly, this transformation was not externally imposed. National constitutional forces – courts, executives, political parties and social actors – actively participate in constructing and maintaining the new order, even as it appears as an external constraint. As Chris Bickerton argues, ‘The paradox of Member Statehood is the way political power is exercised by national governments, but in ways that appear external and far removed from national societies over whom these governments rule’.Footnote ⁹⁷

The concept of European Material Citizenship offers a framework to decipher this appearance from both a normative and a constitutional perspective. It underscores the dynamic character of the constitutional order, capturing a snapshot of its evolution. At present, it reveals a decisive transition: from the state–individuals relationship structured by social democracy to a more complex constitutional geometry linking European institutions, Member States and citizens under the principle of market integrity.

As this analysis captures a constitutional order in motion, it does not foreclose the possibility of further transformation. The trajectory may still evolve in either direction – towards a deeper market-centred integration, or towards a renewed emphasis on social protection and democratic participation. A reconfiguration of the normative ideal within the same constitutional relationship remains conceivable, just as it did in the historical transitions from the liberal-democratic to the authoritarian, and subsequently to the social-democratic state. In this light, the social interventions within the European legal order may be read as tentative efforts to move beyond the market-centred paradigm.Footnote ⁹⁸ These developments can be understood as expressions of a normative ideal attempting to emerge through the very material forces that uphold the existing order. However, they remain fragmented and unsystematic, falling short of the collective orientation that would mark a concerted attempt by the material forces to redefine the dominant constitutional logic.