European Citizenship in Crisis: Citizenship Rights and Austerity Politics

Abstract

It is difficult to appreciate how much the politics and policies of the Eurozone have changed since 2008. This paper focuses on the effects of austerity politics and policy on the citizenship rights of Europeans: their political rights to choose and influence their rulers; their civil rights to expression and organization; and their social rights to basic standards of living. It finds that the changes in EU and Eurozone institutions have sharply eroded those rights. By transferring power to largely undemocratic institutions such as the IMF and ECB, it diminishes the political rights of citizens who are restricted to voting for governments that lost importance. Austerity politics, including new fiscal governance provisions in the Treaties, curtail their social rights by making it harder for governments to correct and compensate inegalitarian market out comes. In sum, changes in the structure of the EU since 1998 have eroded both social and political citizenship for Europeans.