Unionsbürger

Christoph Schönberger analyzes European citizenship as federal citizenship. He compares the situation in the European Union with the development and structure of federal citizenship in the United States, Switzerland and Germany. In doing so, he develops a general pattern of analysis for nested citizenships in federal systems. The nested citizenship of the European Union shows interesting parallels with citizenship in the United States before the Civil War, German citizenship before 1934 and the still valid Swiss citizenship law since 1848/1874. The study avoids a negative comparison of Union citizenship with the nationality of today's national states; by the same token, it shows that theories of 'post-national membership' do not offer convincing descriptions of the meaning and content of European citizenship.