EU Citizenship Needs a Stronger Social Dimension and Soft Duties 185 the case of some welfare benefits are the national rights of citizenship isopolitical, e.g. when they allow any citizen to freely move and to enjoy whatever services – say health care – are provided at the local level, based on choices made by subnational authorities. In the historical federations, sympolitical social rights made a later appearance and still play a lesser role compared to unitary states: federated units have preserved substantial autonomy, especially in health care, social services and assistance. Here the federal government limits itself to guaranteeing free movement and nondiscrimination.8 What about EU citizenship? If we exclude some political rights (most notably the right to elect the European Parliament), EU citizenship is almost entirely isopolitical. It is derivative from national citizenship and basically entitles its holders to be treated as equals when they enter the citizenship space of another member state. The rights attached to the EU passport only apply when one crosses an internal border. True, the EU has adopted a Charter of Fundamental Rights and has recently launched a new initiative called the European Pillar of Social Rights. But these are rather soft rights, they apply only in respect of EU legislative acts and do not really add anything substantial to the catalogue of rights already existing in the member states. EU citizenship does not confer subjective entitlements to material protections (transfers or services) directly provided by the EU. The limited supranational funds that exist in the social field (e.g. the European Social Fund) can only be accessed by national or regional governments. When sympolitical regulatory measures are adopted (e.g. on gender equality or employment protection) they need to be transposed into national legislation to become operative. Even if they concern individual cases, jurisdictional decisions – the rulings of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) – can only result from a request on the side of a national Court. As all rights, also isopolitical ones have corresponding duties. In the first place, mobile citizens are subject to the same obligations that are in force in the country of destination: in particular, they must pay taxes and social security contributions. We can define these obligations as isopolitical duties. But ‘isopolitics’ generates a second, and less visible, type of duty. Stay-at-home citizens are obliged to make room for the mobiles, share with them their own national space (an identity-thick and rights-thick space) and bear the 8 Obinger, H., S. Leibfried & F.G. Castles, (eds.) (2005), Federalism and the Welfare State: New World and European Experiences. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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