Post-National Citizenship in a Post-Brexit European Union: The Case for Treaty Reform and Alternative Routes to Union Citizenship Admission

Heyworth, Jake Peter (2025) Post-National Citizenship in a Post-Brexit European Union: The Case for Treaty Reform and Alternative Routes to Union Citizenship Admission. Doctoral thesis (PhD), Manchester Metropolitan University.

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Abstract

This thesis argues that citizenship of the European Union has not reached its full potential. Article 1 TEU proclaims that the goal of the European Union is to establish an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe. However, the EU is willing to derogate from this obligation where a Member State has expressed its intention to withdraw from the Union under Article 50 TEU. This work questions how seriously the EU takes its own Treaty obligations when pitted against a Member State withdrawal and asks how the EU defines its peoples under Article 3(1) TEU. Citizenship of the Union continues to limit its personal scope to only include EU Member State nationals. Brexit has appeared to confirm such given that the Union citizenship of UK nationals has been stripped from them. However, many UK nationals and long-term and lawfully resident third-country nationals do share in the European Union identity after acting in accordance with its values and principles as stated within Article 2 TEU. It is claimed that such peoples maintain a genuine link with the EU due to their European Union identities and should therefore be admitted to Union citizenship through routes other than the holding of a Member State nationality. The contribution made here is to recognise and accept this identity as the core of Union citizenship and to use such to justify alternative routes to Union citizenship admission. The work proposes further amendments to Articles 2, 3, 9 and 50 TEU, and Article 20(1) TFEU. Ultimately, the work finds that if Union citizenship is to become the fundamental status for those who rely upon it, then it must first be established as a properly post-national status of citizenship that cannot be automatically revoked following a Member State withdrawal from the EU.