ABSTRACT
In the context of the global focus of this Handbook , it should be emphasized that no other continent has anything even remotely resembling a continental citizenship: the very limited additional rights that citizens of the United States, Canada, and Mexico have as a result of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) or those granted to citizens of member states of Mercosur or the African Union, for example, pale in comparison with the extensive equality promised by a European Union citizenship that removes EU member governments’ authority to privilege their own citizens over those from other EU member states. Though substantively focused on the right to live and work anywhere in the EU, and remaining dependent on the nationality of the member states, EU citizenship has come to resemble a form of multilevel or federal citizenship (Maas, 2013a ), with a scope and scale which exists on no other continent. This distinctiveness reflects the ‘unique experiment’ (Kostakopoulou, 2007) of creating a supranational political community on a continental scale. All political communities face the tension between the promise of citizenship to deliver equality and the particularistic drive to maintain diversity; Europe is an exciting case of common citizenship superseding old divisions (Maas, 2013b ).
