102 D. Thym domestic cities known for their quality of life instead of relocating to Spain. To be sure, European rules extend our freedom geographically and in substance, but the surplus remains gradual instead of categorical. The same can be said about his third contention on separating ‘the nation’ from ‘the state’. Here he subscribes to an essentially corrective vision of supranational citizenship. Again, I do not take issue with his analysis as a matter of principle, but wonder about the degree of normative value involved. Arguably, the separation between the nation and the state defended by De Witte is no longer a novelty for most (Western) European societies. Nationality law is a perfect prism to highlight changing self-perceptions: two decades ago, ethno-cultural foundations of national identity were pertinent in many Member States. Immigrants obtained certain rights, but their status could be described as a form of ‘denizenship’, which stopped short of full membership through the formal acquisition of nationality and equal participation in the public realm.1 Today, the picture looks different: some Member States moved towards ius soli and essentialist definitions of national identity are being supplanted by various degrees of civic-pluralistic identities.2 To be sure, European integration may have been instrumental in bringing about this adjustment through more than its rules on free movement. Such change also remains an ongoing challenge characterised by ups and downs and occasional backlashes. While it is well advanced across Western Europe (notwithstanding the surge of populist movements whose success can be rationalised, in part at least, as a reaction to social change), some countries in Central and Eastern Europe are still in need of similar metamorphoses, in which the corrective potential of European rules described by De Witte may play a beneficial role (as recent developments in Poland and Hungary illustrate). But this does not unmake the move towards inclusionary nationality laws and civic-pluralistic identities. If that is correct, the emancipatory dimension of transnational mobility remains limited. It may reinforce a trend whose dynamism, however, is not intrinsically linked to Union citizenship. 1 2 See Hammar, T. (1990), Democracy and the Nation-State. Aliens, Denizens and Citizens in a World of International Migration. Aldershot: Avebury. See Joppke, C. (2010), Citizenship and Immigration. Cambridge: Polity Press, chs 2, 4.