Netherlands

by Dion Kramer and Anita Heindlmaier

Conceived in Maastricht almost thirty years ago, EU citizenship was initially thought of as a mere symbolic addition to existing rights. In the following decades, interventions by the European Court of Justice led many to believe that EU citizenship could emerge as a truly fundamental status capable of conferring concrete social rights to EU citizens crossing borders within the European Union. This promise of a social citizenship beyond the nation-state is currently less tenable. The aftermath of the Great Recession and Brexit have shown the limits of EU citizenship as a status delivering to those most in need of its protection.