Statelessness Working Paper Series 2016/03 Roma as such in the sense of Article 1 of the 1954 Convention 22 would bring the advantages of providing them with the due protection, acknowledging and quantifying the issue, and may foster further research for solutions. While stateless Roma should have access to due rights and protection, as well as to naturalisation procedures in the best case, one could also imagine ways for them to benefit from an alternative legal recognition. Thus, some Romani rights activists call for a recognised Romani stateless nation that would be represented and participate in EU institutions. Yet, this would raise the long debated question of whether or not a nation can exist without a territory. Furthermore, it would raise new questions, such as: what would be the legal link between a Romani national and the state territory where he/she is either a resident or travelling in? How would this Romani stateless nation be reconciled with other potential nationality(ies)? What kind of official representation and political structures within the EU system would this new nationality have? Would stateless Roma living in non-EU countries have access to this Romani nationality? And finally, would this solve the problems associated with statelessness? For the time being, it remains difficult to foresee the legal recognition of a stateless Romani nation in the near future, since the idea is barely known outside of a disunited Romani elite, and poorly supported in international fora. According to Peter Vermeersch, the EU’s growing attention to Roma issues as well as international human rights discourse and practice currently offer better protection of Roma’s rights than the traditional national citizenship scheme.23 Damian Tambini also believes that Romani interests are best served by a practice of ‘post-national citizenship’.24 Moreover, the formal recognition of a Romani nation solely from a legal perspective will neither be sufficient nor efficient if efforts in favour of Roma’s social integration are not implemented in parallel. To date, the Romani nation’s existence seems to raise numerous complicated questions, and consequently remains more symbolic, emotional or utopian than real. Nevertheless, the debate is open. Besides, the progress of EU integration and prospect of EU citizenship development may provide new perspectives for stateless Roma. 3. The achievement of an EU citizenship beyond the state level? A common citizenship status for citizens of EU member states was introduced in 1992 with the signing of the Treaty of Maastricht, whose content and implications have been increasing in parallel to MS national citizenship. EU citizenship is part of EU law and has already generated case law, to such an extent that one can wonder if it could provide an alternative solution for the people who face difficulties accessing citizenship of individual MS. Currently, “[e]very national of a Member State shall be a citizen of the Union. Citizenship of the Union shall be additional to national citizenship and shall not replace it.” 25 The rights of EU citizens are specifically listed in Article 20 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), 26 which also suggests that the list is not exhaustive. It includes the right to move and reside freely within the territory of the MS; the right to vote and to stand as candidates in elections to the European Parliament and in municipal elections; the right to enjoy diplomatic and consular protection in a third country and the right to petition the European Parliament, to apply to the European Ombudsman, and to address the EU institutions in any of the Treaty languages. Furthermore, the Preamble of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights declares that 22 Article 1 (1) of the 1954 Convention “For the purpose of this Convention, the term “stateless person” means a person who is not considered as a national by any State under the operation of its law.” 23 Peter Vermeersch, ‘The Romani perspective: experiences and acts of citizenship across Europe’ in The Routledge Handbook of Global Citizenship Studies, 2014, pp483-4 24 Damian Tambini, ‘Post-national citizenship’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Volume 24, Issue 2, 2001, pp195-217 25 Article 9 of the Treaty on the European Union (TEU). 26 See the full text of the TFEU at <http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:12012E/TXT&from=EN> accessed 1st March 2016 3