Don’t Start with Europeans First. An Initiative for Extending Voting Rights Should also Promote Access to Citizenship for Third Country Nationals Hannes Swoboda I am grateful to Philippe Cayla and Catriona Seth for kicking off this debate on the future of EU citizenship and the extension of voting rights in national elections for all EU citizens residing in a second member state. I believe that the future of EU citizenship, its extension in scope and in nature, is now much more than in the past an essential element of the debate on the future of Europe itself. The introduction of an EU citizenship – albeit as a complement to nationality of a member state and in a context where nation states remain the main actors – has been an extraordinary symbolic step defining the European Union as a community of values and rights. The right to vote in local and European elections in the country of residence remains the core of this process, together with the right to move freely across borders. The exercise – albeit imperfect – of these rights has had an enormous symbolic impact on the concept of European identity, leading gradually to the acknowledgement of citizens that moving and residing in a second member state means bringing with you in a big bag almost all the freedoms and rights you enjoy at national level, including the right to participate fully in a community’s social, economic and political life. The whole objective of making the Union an area of freedom, security and justice stems from a dynamic interpretation of the concept of EU citizenship. The now binding Charter of Fundamental Rights embodies the idea that not only EU citizens, but all persons and their rights must be and must remain the core of the European construction. If persons and their rights have to remain the core of the European construction, then European citizenship must not only be fully exercised but extended in scope. © The Author(s) 2019 R. Bauböck (ed.), Debating European Citizenship, IMISCOE Research Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89905-3_11 55