The State of the European Union. The European Parliament faces its most important elections yet

THE STATE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION 70 One might simplify this by saying that the first approach appeals to the mind, the second to the stomach, and the third to the heart. We will need a combination of all three approaches to construct a European citizenship that can ac- tually be exercised, enjoyed and fully appreci- ated by the great majority of Europeans and those who live in Europe. Conceptually, citizens’ rights can be classi- fied along four dimensions. The first of these corresponds to civil liberties (freedom of thought and expression, religious freedom, etc.). The second refers to political rights (the right to participate in public affairs, to vote and stand in elections etc.). These two categories reflect the Greek model of citizenship. The third group relates to economic and social rights (education, health, social security etc.), and broadly corresponds to the Roman path to citi- zenship. The fourth potential category would include rights which we might once have termed “new generation”, such as the right to the environment or to culture, but which are perhaps better considered as the right to enjoy a full life on post-materialist terms, once the basic material conditions of life have been guaranteed. This fourth dimension, in post-na- tionalist terms, can be equated with the German or romantic conception of citizenship. It is important to remember that this multi- dimensional model of citizenship is indivisible if it is to operate correctly. Civil, political and cul- tural freedoms are of little value if the most ba- sic needs of large numbers of people are unmet. At the same time, a model such as that found in certain Asian countries, where social welfare is provided (albeit with high levels of inequality) but without freedom of expression or participa- tion, is completely unsatisfactory and would be unthinkable in the west. What role does the EU play in providing these citizenship rights? With respect to civil and political rights, it is clear that the EU is the place where such freedoms are most extensive and enjoy the strongest protection, both from Member states and from EU institutions and the Council of Europe system. However, there is still much work to be done. For example, with re- spect to the protection of fundamental rights, the European Convention on Human Rights still has to be ratified by the EU. Nonetheless, the Greek path to European citizenship surely still has some way to run, par- ticularly with respect to strengthening those EU institutions in which citizens are directly repre- sented, such as the European Parliament – or, to put it another way, any institutional reforms that enhance the powers of the directly elected parliament work to strengthen the political di- mension of European citizenship. It is therefore necessary to reaffirm the princi- ple of Spitzenkandidaten , applied for the first time in the 2014 elections, according to which the European Council always nominates the can- didate with the widest support in the European Parliament as president of the Commission. It is also essential to conduct elections on a pan-Eu- ropean basis, so that they are contested not sole- ly on the basis of national issues, and in order to generate a genuinely continental debate. The Franco-German declaration of Meseberg restates this proposal with a view to the European Parliament elections of 2024. And European po- litical parties also need to be encouraged to pre- sent joint electoral programmes supported by unified electoral campaigns. Thirdly, power needs to be shared more evenly between the Council and the Parliament. The European Parliament should take decisions jointly with the Council, a move that would re- quire treaty reform. At the same time, decision-