THE EU CITIZENSHIP AND THE EUROPEAN IDENTITY

Abstract

The article presents an overview of the process of development of the citizenship of the European Union introduced with the Treaty of Maastricht, like one of the mechanisms adopted by the European institutions in the process of creating the European identity. After the enforcement of the Treaty of Lisbon, which does not include in its content the European symbols such as flag, anthem, European Day, etc, the issue on European identity was opened again. In this paper, the authors argue that the Citizenship of the European Union remains the only symbol of the created European Identity, as it takes central position in the EU law after the Treaty of Lisbon.