I presupposti teorici della cittadinanza europea: originarie contraddizioni e nuovi limiti

THE THEORETICAL PRESUMPTIONS OF EU CITIZENSHIP: ORIGINAL CONTRADICTIONS AND NEW LIMITS ABSTRACT: This paper deals with EU citizenship and with some of the persistent ambiguities present in the case law of the Court of Justice. In the first part, it shows that EU citizenship, at the beginning, had a series of contradictions that are now emerging when it is under stress. In the second part, this work highlights how the economic and financial crisis and the consequent crisis of the political legitimacy of the EU is putting limits new and serious on the rights acquired through the EU citizenship by European mobile and static citizens. The fragility of the original institution emerged when, on the one hand, EU citizenship for the first time has gained the centre of the political discourse and when, on the other, it is put under stress by new and consistent intra-European migration, due to the financial crisis and encouraged by the inner opportunities offered by EU citizenship.