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This contribution, like those immediately preceding it, is written in the aftermath of the 23rd June 2016 referendum on the UK continued membership of the EU. It first considers, by comparison, ramifications of Britain’s impending exit, should it occur, on the status and rights of EU27 citizens resident in the UK. It proceeds to discuss the impact of Brexit on UK citizens resident in the EU27, highlighting their predicament and appraising three potential remedies: naturalisation in another EU member state, decoupling of Union citizenship rights from Union citizenship, and modifications of the status and rights of Third Country Nationals.

I argue that we need to connect debates about the ‘free movement’ of EU citizens with discussions about EU member states’ ‘immigration policies’ toward people from outside Europe. This is exactly the opposite approach to the one traditionally taken and advocated by the European Commission and many other European policy-makers who have insisted on a clear distinction between the ‘mobility’ of EU citizens on the one hand, and the ‘immigration’ of third-country nationals on the other. To develop my argument, I first outline some of the key differences between how ‘migrants’ and ‘mobile EU citizens’ are debated and regulated in the European Union. This is followed by a brief explanation of why I think the current distinctions may be considered problematic from both a moral and political perspective.

As was to be expected on a topic such as the relationship between free movement and Union citizenship, the discussion above has been both fruitful and wide-ranging, not in the least due to the decision of the British electorate to leave the EU that took place half-way through this EUDO forum debate (and that throws in doubt the rights of residence of Union citizens in the UK, as well as that of UK citizens in the EU). In my rejoinder I address three themes that transcend the various points of view expressed in our debate. Is my defence of Union citizenship as being primarily about free movement insufficiently sensitive to its exclusionary potential? Is my account precariously perched between nation state and cosmopolitanism? Does the link between free movement and citizenship that is central to my account make for a normatively and institutionally impoverished vision of justice?

This contribution argues for strengthening EU citizenship in order to make it not only attractive for mobile Europeans but also for ‘stayers’ who feel left behind in processes of globalisation and European integration. EU citizenship is primarily ‘isopolitical’ and regulatory; it confers horizontal rights to people to enter the citizenship spaces of other member states and it imposes duties of non-discrimination on these states without providing for redistribution in response to perceived or real burdens resulting from free movement. I suggest several reforms that aim broadly at empowering the stayers. Among my proposals are an ‘EU social card’, universal transferrable vouchers for accessing social rights in other member states that stayers can pass on to their children who want to move, and a European wide social insurance scheme that would supplement those of the member states. I also suggest to strengthen EU citizenship with some soft duties, such as earmarking a small percentage of personal income tax for EU social policies or raising funds for such policies through fees on an EU social card or EU passports.

This chapter questions four presumptions on which the proposal for `adding stuff` to EU citizenship and making it `duty-full` rests. First and most importantly, liberal citizenship is duty-free. Second, national citizenship is not a model for EU citizenship. Third, the notion that non-movers have to be compensated for the costs incurred by movers is wrong and buys into populism. Finally, sharpening the legal distinction between EU citizens and legal permanent immigrants is illiberal and retrograde, moving the EU toward a Gulf-state logic.

Which rights should European citizenship entail to protect the achievements of European integration, while overcoming its pitfalls? Should we aim to ‘add stuff’, as Ferrera suggests, or rather follow Joppke’s plea for non-exclusive citizenship rights? I agree with Ferrera’s diagnosis that EU citizenship has an isopolitical bias, it horizontally opens nationally shaped (and financed) welfare systems to citizens from other member states. However, in his ‘detecting of the flaws’ he overlooks the largely judicial genesis of citizenship rights, which are crucial for understanding the shortcomings of EU citizenship.

Maurizio Ferrera tables a catalogue of proposals to add a social dimension and ‘some duty’ to EU citizenship. As always, his search for incremental solutions that reconcile feasibility and vision is challenging. However, I have some sympathy with Joppke’s reaction that one cannot dispense with a more fundamental debate on free movement, on which public opinion is deeply divided. Ferrera’s proposals may be relatively peripheral to settling that fundamental debate. On the other hand, Joppke’s insistence that EU citizenship is duty-free, because it is liberal, does not yield a justification for free movement and non-discrimination of mobile Europeans. I believe it is possible to justify free movement in a framework of principles that speak both to the mobile and the non-mobile European, whereby openness is embedded in principles of reciprocity. Reciprocity bridges rights and obligations.

Maurizio Ferrera’s essay on how to take EU citizenship forward is an inspiring and welcome contribution to a heated, politicised debate. In my contribution I focus on the tension between the ‘small constituency of mobile citizens’ and those who stay. As researcher we need to engage in fact-finding missions. And there is empirical evidence that mobile EU citizens are net contributors to the public purse. There are still negative externalities of EU free movement that need to be confronted politically. The question then becomes: at what regulatory level and with which means? I suggest that some forms of differentiated integration in this respect may disturb the uniformity of EU rules, but could at the same time increase its domestic support.

Given Ferrera’s insistence that EU citizenship should play a more ‘integrative role’, the criteria by which we should judge whether his proposals would be successful, assuming they were ever adopted, are explicitly functional. In my contribution I seek to ground them not in a functional-empirical analysis of what is most likely to inspire support for EU citizenship but in a broader conception of social justice. The two perspectives are not in direct competition, but they do depart from very different starting points.

EU migrant citizens are often considered as outsiders, who access social benefits and services without having fulfilled their duties in the country of destination. As a group, however, EU migrant citizens are net contributors to the public purse in key destination countries. The current debate on duties of citizens within (con)federal jurisdictions has been rehearsed in different contexts, such as the North German Federation or the US, and the arguments are no different. EU citizenship must become an unconditional fundamental status, if it is to be meaningful.