Much ink has been spilled recently about what it felt like to be a UK citizen during the changes leading to the coalition government – we were being ignored/our wishes were being followed; we were voting for change/we did not know what we wanted; etc (in each case, delete whichever you think did not apply to you).But the EU is going through an even more turbulent period, and no one has been writing about what it feels like to be a European citizen at such a time. I will give you my view: it feels terrible. I am usually able to withstand all the sneers about the democratic deficit, the lowest common denominator, an unwieldy superstate, and all that. But it has been heartbreaking to see the foot-dragging and national self-interest in the drama over the saving of the euro. The whole European enterprise is being threatened, and there is nothing that I, one citizen among 500 million, can do about it.
Yet the EU is interested in our views. They have recently launched a consultation on citizens’ rights. This is a fresh topic of focus ever since it dawned on the powers-that-be that so many of us feel alienated and powerless within EU structures.
The first interesting aspect of the consultation is that it lists your rights as an EU citizen. Are you able to recite them by heart? Well, they include:
The EU Treaty also prohibits discrimination on the basis of nationality, meaning that all EU citizens should ultimately receive the same treatment in the same situation anywhere in the EU. And the Treaty of Lisbon introduced a new right, called the European citizens’ initiative. This means that one million citizens who are nationals of a significant number of member states can ask the commission to bring forward new policy proposals on any issue which falls within the competence of the Union. Finally, there are procedural rights of access to EU documents, plus the rights to communicate with the EU institutions in your own language.
Most of the questions in the consultation are general and political, and so broadly drawn as to be difficult to answer. But one is of concern to lawyers:
4. What could be done to improve the recognition of documents relating to birth, marriage, death, etc between member states, and to reduce formalities and costs (for instance by ensuring automatic recognition of such legal documents in any other member state, by establishing standard European formats for specific documents, etc)?
Regular readers might recognise the danger: notaries! They are always keen to ensure that recognition of documents should pass first through their authenticating process, and lawyers must be on guard, therefore, to protect the interests of citizens of non-notarial legal systems, as well as the rights of lawyers to be involved in processes involving recognition of documents, where appropriate.
(Speaking of notaries, they have completed a useful piece of work for the European Commission, summarising the law on succession in all the member states – see http://www.successions-europe.eu. You may notice that it has been drawn up by notaries from the answers given. For France, for instance, you read: ‘Where the estate includes real estate, the settlement of a succession requires the services of a notary.’ And notaries are frequently mentioned in the description of other civil law systems. But I could find no mention of solicitors in the description of UK procedures.)
But back to citizenship. We need many things to restore our sense of healthy EU citizenship, above all strong and effective leadership in the EU’s interest. But don’t sit back and complain: answer the consultation. You have until 14 June 2010 to do so.
Jonathan Goldsmith is the secretary general of the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe, which represents more than 700,000 European lawyers through its member bars and law societies
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