One Cannot Promote Free Movement of EU Citizens and Restrict Their Political Participation Dora Kostakopoulou The contributions to the EUDO debate on whether EU citizens should have voting rights in national elections in the country of their residence are both enlightening and thoughtful. They have provided a number of valuable reflections on matters of principle, policy, strategy, and tactics in the light of contemporary political developments at both European Union and domestic levels. By clarifying matters of principle as well as issues of politics, they have outlined several trajectories and shed ample light onto the pros and cons of the European Citizens’ Initiative. Given the horizon of possibilities open to us, we are now obliged to exercise our liberty to decide whether we would support the proposal for a European Citizens’ Initiative on national voting rights. Let me state at the outset that I fully support it; after all, since the mid-1990s my work has consistently defended the grant of electoral rights in national elections to European Union citizens in the member state of residence. Believing that circumstances do not decide (and should not decide) and that deciding not to decide is not a credible option, the above line of decision has been prompted by the following four considerations. 1) The weight of principles The contradiction between belonging fully to a polity as a contributor, collaborator, and burden-sharer and at the same time being deemed as not fully belonging to it with respect to the enjoyment of certain benefits, including national voting rights, is unsustainable form a democratic point of view. Robert Dahl and Carlos Santiago Nino have convincingly pointed out that democracy requires inclusion and, most certainly, the inclusion of all those who have a long-term interest in a country and its institutions. In this respect, the full enfranchisement of Union citizens in the member state of their residence is the only corrective to the existing ‘democratic wrong’, as Owen has put it. True, some might argue, here, that admission of Union citizens to the ‘national community’ of citizens would undermine the distinction between © The Author(s) 2019 R. Bauböck (ed.), Debating European Citizenship, IMISCOE Research Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89905-3_13 61