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F. De Witte
he exclusionary potential of free movement and Union
T
citizenship
In my initial contribution, I have defended the close link between free movement and Union citizenship on account that it liberates the individual from
the shackles of majoritarian views ‘at home’, that it recalibrates ideas of
justice in a more appropriate fashion, and that it is not premised on a vision
of community that is exclusionary. Several commentators have emphasized
that this vision is, however, also one that is selective. Sarah Fine highlights
that while free movement might be a right that is available for EU citizens,
it is also a reason for the creation of ‘hard’ external borders that attempt to
keep out non-Europeans, who often find themselves stranded in terrible circumstances outside (or even inside) the EU. Kieran Oberman, likewise,
points out that such closure on the EU-level simply recreates the problem
that I am trying to overcome: it excludes outsiders, limits their emancipation
and capacity to enjoy a range of rights.
Others, such as Rainer Bauböck, have emphasized that free movement
(and therefore Union citizenship) prioritises the needs and aspirations of
certain Europeans (let’s say the well-educated, young, urban, and middle-
classes) over those of other Europeans (in the traditional account, this group
comprises of the elderly, the rural, working classes). This division, as is well
documented, also appeared to lie at the core of the electoral split in the UK
on Brexit. Julija Sardelić adds to this account that mobility requires certain
social and cultural resources that are unavailable for whole swathes of the
population. The differentiation that is implicit in free movement, on these
accounts, jars with the basic premise of equality that is central to our understanding of citizenship.
Let me take these arguments in turn, starting with the exclusionary
potential of free movement and Union citizenship in the most dramatic –
territorial – sense. Sarah Fine is certainly correct to highlight that the process of integration and its manifestation as Fortress Europe has dramatic
consequences for those that cannot claim a right to free movement or Union
citizenship. And certainly the institutions of the EU have placed a dodgy
understanding of vulnerability at the core of its external border policy: one
that understands the EU and its Member States to be vulnerable from intrusion by ‘the other’ as an object, rather than one that understands the refugees as the subject of vulnerability. This process can, possibly, indeed by
reduced to the creation of a category of Union citizen that remains the main
subject of the EU legal order, and main preoccupation of its institutional
order, as Martin Ruhs claims. But the argument that reduces the drama
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