Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-02-11-Speech-2-012"
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"en.20030211.1.2-012"2
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"Madam President, on behalf of my colleague, Carmen Cerdeira, who has been shadow rapporteur for this report, and who unfortunately cannot be here, I will try as far as possible to speak on behalf of my political group.
Citizenship of the Union – institutionalised and created as such by the Treaty of Maastricht and later modified by the Treaty of Amsterdam – confers a series of rights and duties on the nationals of all the Member States.
The intention is to associate the citizens with the process of European integration, giving them more involvement, strengthening the protection of their rights and promoting the idea of a European identity by means of the creation of a sense of belonging amongst the citizens of the Union. The citizenship rights and the Union as a whole will only have credibility amongst the citizens if they can be applied in practice in their everyday lives.
Within the context of citizenship of the Union, one of the fundamental rights that citizenship confers is laid down in Article 18(1) of the Treaty, which gives every citizen of the Union the right to enter, move and reside freely in the territory of the Member States.
The same right, with a similar wording, is conferred on the European citizen by Article 45(1) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, and this seems to us very significant.
Consequently, these rights are of a constituent and not a declarative nature. In other words they are acquired regardless of any permission granted by the Member States.
We welcome the Commission’s proposal, which we consider to be a genuine step forward. The movement of the Union’s citizens amongst the Member States should be carried out
in conditions similar to those of the citizens of a particular State.
In reality, Madam President, the Union’s citizens have taken this principle on board much more quickly and thoroughly than their governments. They have taken it on board and they exercise it. I can assure you that in my part of the Union, on the coast where I spend several days, there are many European citizens residing illegally who simply come and go between their two houses, one in their country of origin and one in my country, whenever they want and without filling out any papers. It cannot be demonstrated whether these people have spent the last six months in their house, because sometimes it is 60 km from the neighbouring country. The euro will make this even easier and more possible and I hope that progress can be made within the Commission. Therefore, my group has presented amendments that intend, once and for all, to end the consideration of the economic situation of people, giving priority to the condition of citizen, and to recognise that at this moment the citizens and their families are already exercising the right to free movement within the European Union."@en1
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