Europe United was represented at the EU's Conference on Citizens' rights last week by Board member Nico Segers. The conference focused on abolishing remaining hurdles Citizens encounter when making use of their rights as EU citizens and proposed solutions like trusted European documents to overcome such hurdles (especially concerning free movement).

During the first two July days, the Charlemagne building opposite the Berlaymont in Brussels served as the venue of the joint conference “EU Citizen’s Rights: The Way Forward”. If one thing became clear over the speeches made by Commissioner Viviane Reding, Belgian minister of Justice Stefaan De Clerck and Mr. Juan F. Lopez Aguilar (chair of the Parliamentary committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs), it is that many administrative traditions still impair the facilitation, harmonization and democratization of citizen rights when those citizens move between regions and country borders in the EU-27.
A lot of statutory bias and lack of recognition between either civil status and appropriation of the same rights for native citizens, as well as sheer procrastination of implementing EU legislation (2004/38/EC on the right of the citizens of the Union and family members to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States) make results look rather bleak.
Nevertheless, behind the curtains much of the errors and failing ‘coils, gears and levers’, the Commission is gathering and interpreting elements from an audacious data set of gathered enquiries with European citizens, national civil servants, government representatives, migration services and lawmakers, to determine a more proper and practical roadmap to bolster harmonization and abolish national legal and bureaucratic impediments and clutter that clip the full enjoyment of equal EU civilian rights. Indeed, the lack of separation between national migration laws and the EU-designed free movement laws, and the lack of separation in the category of ‘3rd degree family members’ often result in dubious or failing interpretations for many EU nationals wanting to settle elsewhere in the union or be reunited with cousins (by lineage of a first, second or latter marriage). Similar administrative miseries ensue often in case of the legal (vs. free) use of the parental or maternal family name in case of a birth outside the country of origin.
Mr. De Clerck voiced his worries and said “we can simply be sorry for the fact that the EU citizen has not heard the message – upon the implementation of Lisbon – concerning their strengthened rights, and the assurances provided […]”. Yet the issue can not just be deduced to the opinion that citizens are either poorly informed or unjustly interested. 11,3 million Europeans being ‘mobile’ outside their national boundaries might look nice on paper, that represents only a fraction of the actual projected mobility IF the European legislation would be truly in place and cover all practical gaps. Mrs. Diana Wallis (MEP) has her hopes set on a sort of ‘optional European solution’, where additional documents could be issued to ascertain by full one’s legal civil status and proving one’s eligibility to enjoy full EU citizenship. This way, all kind of nationally issued documents over which other nations seem to hold administrative ‘reservations’ against could topped by ‘supra-validation’ in the form of EU-issued, authenticated and non-forgeable civil credentials.
A great reference player for the future will surely be the European Court of Justice, to which one day a brave EU citizen may hold governments that belay or ignore European legislation (those they actually approved themselves!), and respect for transnational citizen rights, accountable and seek the full recognition of clearly lined democratic principles. Every citizen creates unique social and society-embedded situations that will prompt corrections of the lawmakers one way or the other, and so steadily we must gain ground for our rights in every corner of Europe.
Unless citizens continue to ‘shake up’ our lawmakers and MEP’s to protect and enforce the inherently democratic rights across member states’ boundaries, the latter will likely remain idle or “quick-fix” recurring shortcomings in civil and justice directives. It is up to us to connect the dots in lieu and address the gaps on broad platforms such as the ECJ and representative organizations.