Abstract

It is well known that the dominant paradigm underlying the free movement jurisprudence of the Court of Justice has progressively shifted from the ‘market citizen’ to the EU citizen: in order to invoke free movement and equal treatment rights an economic nexus is no longer needed, allowing, for example, students to claim equal treatment with host Member State nationals as regards access to education and the receipt of study grants. Normatively, however, this raises important questions. The classic logic whereby these free movement and equal treatment rights were provided to Member State nationals as a quid pro quo for their contribution to and participation in a project of European integration—the establishment of the common market—is undermined. A new ‘aim’ or ‘rationale’ is thus needed, capable of explaining and informing the citizenship jurisprudence of the Court. The purpose of this article is to construct a conceptual framework for the Court’s EU citizenship jurisprudence by relying on a cosmopolitan vision of citizenship as set out by Immanuel Kant in his seminal work Zum ewigen Frieden. It is submitted in this article that Kant’s cosmopolitan right of hospitality, meant to guarantee interaction between the peoples of the world with a view to developing a shared universal conscience characterised by a desire for peace and prosperity, in essence informs the EU citizenship jurisprudence of the Court