The Citizen

Now that the Treaty of Lisbon, effected in December 2009, has come into force, a legal framework has been introduced that has unmistakably changed the relations between the member states and the European Union in favour of a transnational definition of citizenship. The Dutch parliament anticipated this move in 2008 by referring to the EU as a union of member states and citizens. Although this introduced dual citizenship, the instruments for promoting (European) citizenship have not been adapted to this new situation in any of the member states. The question of the role that the up-coming well educated and mobile class can play in the growing international public space has to be analysed. One can observe that in practically non of the member states the issue of European citizenship has inspired the usual political analysts, newspaper correspondents nor radioand tvcommentators to discover this novelty in the lives of all citizens as something worth to pay attention to.