Free Movement Emancipates, but What Freedom Is This? 119 Now, this attenuated freedom might be normatively satisfactory as the stake of the external citizens in their country of origin is decreased, too.4 And of course, along with the freedom to move, the EU citizens now have – uniquely – extensive rights to participate in the democratic governance of the EU itself, which remain unaffected by their movement. Further to this, from day one EU citizens have enjoyed significant rights to participate in the political process of the host state. Apart from the electoral franchise, the rights of participation they have there, albeit limited, roughly correspond to the rights which are difficult to exercise from a distance in the home state. It might appear that freedom – even republican freedom – lost equals freedom gained. The problem is that in practice the external citizens are far less likely to exercise the rights they have in the host state than they would exercise equivalent rights in their state of origin. While your ability to attend a rally ceases on the day you have left the country, it is highly unlikely that you would participate in another rally on the day you arrived in your new country of residence. Notwithstanding the legal rights the Treaties will give, there is an inevitable lag before a mobile citizen integrates in the political process of the host state to the degree he or she was integrated in the home state. For this period – and it can be very long – the mobile citizens are losing a significant aspect of their freedom due to their movement. This may all appear trivial. Indeed, reality rarely conforms fully to our normative expectations; even in the simplest case of national voting not every single citizen has effective and equal opportunity to vote and we are still satisfied when the overwhelming majority does. As long as only about 15 (out of 508) million EU citizens5 have actually moved one may be right not to lose much sleep over the impact on democracy in the EU. The problem is one of aggregation. Republican freedom, and democracy in general, depend on a critical number of citizens who do participate actively in the political process. When fewer people participate – in voting and in the informal modes of contestation – the robustness of freedom decreases for all. Indeed, one of the main reasons for the democratic deficit of the EU is alleged to be the low turnout in elections for the European Parliament. This 4 5 For a discussion see Bauböck, R. (2007), ‘Stakeholder Citizenship and Transnational Political Participation: A Normative Evaluation of External Voting’, Fordham L. Rev. 75 (5): 393–447. Eurostat, see data available at http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Migration_and_ migrant_population_statistics.