ABSTRACT
The Maastricht Treaty is said to have established a European citizenship. The rationale of the leaders meeting at Maastricht in December 1991 was to correct or disguise the overly economic and financial nature of the treaty. But by instituting suffrage for nationals of the European Union in local and European elections without first reconciling each member state’s laws regarding nationality, the Union accepted the notion-probably false-that there are essential and unavoidable differences between the national traditions of each country. The method chosen by the leaders, far from creating a feeling of citizenship or allowing for the emergence of a true European citizenship, rather had the effect of upsetting the basic conditions for the integration of resident immigrants.
