What is European Citizenship? The Dilemmas of Public Opinion in the Age of Maastricht

Abstract

This article argues that it is possible to understand the ambiguities of European public opinion only if we approach the question in terms of how, both at the continental and at the national level, public opinion in Europe has been produced through socio-economic and political mechanisms, rather than being given by the sum of individual preferences. In particular, the paper focuses on how the specific conditions of being a citizen, and thus constituting public opinion, are produced through the restructuring of national spaces at the continental level. Taking as an example the case of the Greek referendum of July, 5, 2015, on the structural adjustment program proposed by the European institutions, the paper argues that the EU is characterized by a process of continuous differentiation of the conditions of possibility and of the rights of national citizens. Finally, the paper proposes to read these transformations through the model, proposed by Nicos Poulantzas, of restructuring of the matrix of European statehood.