Commission conclusions regarding EU citizenship

In previous posts on my blogs, I have commented on aspects of the progress report from the European Commission:

On progress towards effective EU Citizenship 2007-2010; Brussels 27.10.2010, COM(2010) 602 final

In this blog entry we first present the conclusions of the progress report (page 13):

This Report takes stock of the main developments on EU Citizenship rights and constitutes an important element on the basis of which further action is identified in the EU Citizenship Report 2010, notably as regards the right to free movement and residence, consular protection of unrepresented EU citizens abroad and rights of citizens to vote and stand as candidates in municipal and European elections in their Member State of residence.

Starting next year, the Commission will make an annual assessment of the Treaty provisions on the rights attached to EU Citizenship in the context of the Annual Report on the application of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU, which will be issued for the first time in 2011.

This should allow the Commission to present every three years a more substantiated diagnosis of the situation, the remaining obstacles that citizens face, and announce remedies to strengthen EU Citizenship rights.

In the first paragraph, the Commission announced the main issues to look for in the Citizenship Report COM(2010) 603, when we soldier on.

We look forward to the promised Annual Report on the application of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU, including its assessment of citizenship rights, beginning next year.


Population and citizenship

The annex presents interesting facts about the number and proportion of nationals and non-nationals (EU citizens and third country citizens)(page 15).

There are huge variations in the relative sizes. In Luxembourg 43.5 per cent of the total population are non-nationals (overwhelmingly from other EU countries), whereas the proportion of non-nationals in Poland and Romania hardly registered: 0.1 per cent.



Ralf Grahn



P.S. The Institute of International and European Affairs (IIEA) in Dublin, Ireland, offers what we could call IIEA blogs, with quality entries.