Toothless European Citizenship / Šimon Uradnik

outcomes are underlined by the survey of Eurobarometer which found that the percentage of people never discussing European political matters is 11% higher than that of people never discussing national political matters. For these reasons; even though European matters’ appearance during the European Parliament elections has been increasing over the last decade, the campaign and contact with the electorate are still dominated by national themes, hence, interests. That mirrors the behaviour and interest of voters who do not perceive these elections as essential ones, wherefore they search rather for national topics. Therefore, it cannot be said that shared political interests would appear amongst Union citizens. Figure II. − Levels of interest in different political matters

Source: Standard Eurobarometer 100 − Autumn 2023

To partially conclude; although the author has no intention to question the existence of a certain kind of European identity as a rather constitutional patriotism than as an actual depiction of culturally interlinked society, it alone, as a set of legal and political principles and values, may not give rise to the genuine link since the requirements of the mutual societal attachment to the European Union and of common political interests are not met. Wherefore, it must be clearly stated that the genuine link is not the essence of Union citizenship (yet). As the International Court of Justice depicted, the genuine link is the genuine connection of all elements; ergo, one cannot exist without the other. Therefore, the emergence of the genuine link in citizenship of the Union would need to appear co-jointly. That all might be underscored by the paraphrase of Massimo d’Azeglio: 144 ‘We have made Europe, now 144 An Italian artist, politician, and promoter of the unification of Italy under a federal system.

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