Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-01-16-Speech-1-084"
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"en.20060116.15.1-084"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the granting of citizenship and the rights associated with it is a prerogative of the Member States. European citizenship is an emerging concept, a right deriving from national citizenship. The fact that each country has different procedures for granting national citizenship means that there is no uniform procedure for acquiring European citizenship.
Commissioner Frattini has also said he is willing to give support of this kind. I believe it is a very important step, which has also obtained the approval of a great many social and trade union organisations within civil society, both religious and secular. I am referring in particular to two major Italian organisations: Caritas and a major Catholic trade union, the CISL, which have publicly come out in support of this report to introduce citizenship by residence.
Finally, I should like to reassure all those who, in their comments on this report, have raised the spectre of introducing a European tax in order to extend citizenship rights. They even include the Italian Prime Minister, who wrongly claimed during a recent television broadcast that this Parliament wanted to introduce a tax in order to extend citizenship. To dispel any doubts – although I do not see any threat in this report – I propose that we remove the explicit reference to a European tax and concentrate exclusively on the citizenship-by-residence concept. I hope that doing so will also help to deprive those who are afraid to extend rights in Europe of their excuses.
This report, for which I am the rapporteur, does not call the Member States’ prerogative into question: the right to citizenship and the granting of citizenship are their prerogatives, as expressly laid down in the Treaties. The times are perhaps not yet ripe for harmonisation of the procedures for granting citizenship, as I realised even during the debate in committee.
Nonetheless, I believe it would be extremely useful and, indeed, necessary to begin a period of reflection – in the medium to short term – on the real and effective value of the idea of European citizenship. In my opinion – and not just mine but that of most of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs – the only way to endow the idea of European citizenship with real value is to link it closely to the idea of residence.
European citizenship by residence is a very important issue, and thousands of associations and thinkers who have taken part in this debate have already submitted a petition to implement it. European citizenship by residence can be included alongside the other procedures for acquiring citizenship – that is, citizenship by bloodline (
) or by birthplace (
) – which are provided for in many European Union countries.
I believe that granting citizenship by residence is a way to eliminate and avoid certain paradoxes. Just think, for instance, that someone may be considered a European citizen – rightly too, perhaps – if he or she was born to Italian parents, lives in Argentina or Venezuela and has never set foot on EU soil, whereas someone else may not be considered a European citizen – unfairly, in my view – even though he or she has lived and worked in a Member State for 10 or 20 years but was unfortunately born to Tunisian or Egyptian parents.
I believe that bloodline, birthplace and residence may, together and at the same time, constitute valid grounds for granting citizenship rights.
Affirming that a person may become a citizen of the European Union after five years’ legal residence in Europe seems to us a practical way to reopen the debate on the future of Europe, which, since the rejection of the Constitutional Treaty, has plunged into a crisis that may prove fatal and irreversible. Certain rights associated with EU citizenship are already conferred on the basis of residence: I am referring to the right to petition the European Parliament and the right to submit a complaint to the Ombudsman.
Thus the right of free movement and residence and also the right to vote in European and local elections might be extended, in the same way as these rights are granted to EU citizens residing in a country other than their own. That would be an important step towards integrating all those non-EU citizens who live in Europe legally.
I also call on my fellow Members who belong to the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats to support this position and to give up excessively extreme positions. The document I am putting forward not only received the support of my group, the Socialist Group in the European Parliament, the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance and the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe in committee, but it also had the support of the Commission, whose members told the Committee on Civil Liberties that they were in favour of implementing citizenship by residence."@en1
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"ius soli"1
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