88 P. Cayla and C. Seth In this context, let us take another look at some of the objections set out by certain contributors. 1) The main objection is that a European citizen who resides in another member state must take out its nationality if s/he wants to vote there. Answer: clearly, if the principle of free circulation is to apply, any European has to be able to move to another EU country whenever s/he wants to – why not every year if the labour market makes this desirable? One can recall here that Olivier Blanchard, the IMF Chief Economist had imagined in 1998 that the Euro zone could fail because of lack of fluidity in the European labour market. Asking EU nationals to acquire another EU nationality in order to be able to vote does not seem to offer an apposite answer: in these changing times, many of us will live and study in several EU states within our lifetime – Sue Collard helpfully gives a couple of examples of people concerned by such moves. Does this mean that each time we take up residence in a country we should pick up the nationality, thanks to simplified procedures? Or would this not debase the concept, were we to end up, routinely, with three, four or five passports? As Rainer Bauböck suggests, citizenship should be seen as a lifelong status. Unlike him we feel that, as a result, one EU passport should be enough for anyone: citizenship of any EU nation should make one an EU citizen, wherever one lives. This is not to preclude anyone from holding a second EU citizenship or to deny anyone dual nationality. Acquiring a country’s passport should not, however, be a prerequisite in order to vote in its national elections if one is already an EU citizen within the Union. As Alain Brun puts it in a nutshell: ‘I understand European citizenship as the right to be considered as a national by any member state other than the one whose nationality I hold, as soon as I am in relation with its authorities, in one way or another.’ Or, to echo Dimitry Kochenov’s words: ‘Since member state nationalities are in the absolute majority of cases legally inconsequential for EU citizens travelling around the EU, connecting democratic participation with naturalisation amounts to artificially inflating the importance of an abolished status.’ In addition, Roxana Barbulescu makes a very interesting comment when she opposes the individual solution of naturalisation and the collective process of enfranchisement of EU citizens. Obviously, no one is going to change nationalities every year. In addition, on a legal level, questions of nationality are outside an ECI’s scope. 2) Second objection: it is more urgent to improve the current situation, viz access to and participation in municipal and European elections, and prudent to limit the demand for new rights for Europeans to regional elections.