ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the expansion of citizenship rights with respect to the so-called acquis communautaire2 that delineates potential resources for policy-making on citizenship. It focuses on the problem of the creation of the public sphere and the legitimisation of the new European setting. The recognition of a common legal status would permit not only freedom of movement for third-country nationals but would also guarantee them equal treatment in social rights in so far as concerns housing, minimum salary, unemployment benefits and other forms of financial assistance. The formation of the inner circle or the category of 'us' in which the citizen status is functional to the creation of a new 'political community' inevitably reinforces the ideology of nationality. Changes in policy-making at the national level should be seen rather as a consequence of the establishment of European citizenship. The acquis communautaire serves as a body of legal resources that is given shape through the policy-making process.
