EU citizenship and categorization of EU migrants

Abstract

The paper’s aim is to underline the growing phenomenon of categorization of EU migrants despite the existence of a common EU citizenship. It addresses legal categorization deriving from EU legislation and the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the European Union, but also factual categorization arising from host member states’ practices. The legal categorization of EU migrants reveals a clear differential treatment between economically active and inactive EU mobile citizens. Member states’ practices very often go further than legal categorization by excluding poor mobile citizens, viewed as abusers of rights (benefit tourism) or as a potential threat to local public order or security (ill health, begging, violence). This paper also investigates the incompleteness of EU citizenship, being unable to prevent categorization of EU migrants.