ECAS (European Citizens Action Service), ENAR (European Network Against Racism) and the Youth Forumwant to put citizenship on the agenda of the Convention.Citizenship needs to be adressed by the Convention and to be included in the Constitution's proposal. "A real constitution should take citizenship as its point of departure", said ECAS. Otherwise the Constitution's proposal will only be a constitutional settlement about who does what and the role of the institutions;
To examine the barriers to the "European Citizenship" established by the Maastricht Treaty, ECAS started an hotline in association with ENAR and the Youth Forum. This hotline will collect opinions about European Citizenship and will provide help to individuals. Experts will answer questions regarding recognition of qualifications, health and pension rights, residence in another country...The hotline is available by phone ( + 32 2 548 04 94) or by email: ecas@ecas.org. It will run from october 1 to the end of November 2002.
ECAS, ENAR and the Youth Forum advocate a wider European Citizenship:
- Who should be European citizen?According to the Treaties, any national of a Member State is a citizen of the Union. ECAS, ENAR and the Youth Forum consider that legally resident third country nationals should also enjoy European citizenship. They call on the Convention to end discrimination against long-term resident immigrants and to consider a European citizenship based on residence rather than on nationality.
- What else should be in the European citizenship?They call on the Convention to remove the limitations to the European citizenship. The right of movement is not yet granted to all, it is still linked to someone's economic status: student, worker...They identify the need to make the European citizenship more visible and recommend to have a Commissioner for European citizenhip and fundamental rights.
