The historical origins of local-national citizenship combinations in Western Europe and the implications for EU citizenship

Chapter 2 analyses the historical origins of local and national citizenship constructions, discussing their implications for EU citizenship. Relations between national and local as well as political and economic dimensions vary significantly between countries. This means that policies to develop an EU citizenship which uses an idealised national citizenship as its frame of reference will inevitably be at odds with the variety of citizenship traditions existing in many countries. At the same time, the pluriformity of Europe’s citizenship traditions also provides an opportunity. Instead of starting from scratch, therefore, by trying to develop a completely new centralised form of citizenship the EU would be better advised to acknowledge the national traditions of its Member States and aspire to a multilevel form of citizenship.