Citizenship and the European Community

`This important book provides the first overview in English of the practices of the EC with respect to citizenship. It documents in detail the emergence of a solid tissue of new economic and social rights for workers throughout the Union. Elizabeth Meehan pays particular attention to the EC's actions in the area of equal protection, which have resulted in recalcitrant member states being pressed and prodded to move in the direction of gender equality. Meehan is careful to trace and to document the roots of such new rights, which lie not only in the Treaty of Rome (and now that of Maastricht) but also in the decisions of the European Court and directives of the Commission. In this analysis she clearly demonstrates the breadth of the commitment to extending citizenship rights within the institutions of the Community' - Economic and Industrial Democracy `This book is an excellent analysis of the political evolution of the European Community because it provides a comprehensive review of both macro-level institutional change as well as perspectives on the micro-level impact of the EC on the lives of people throughout the EC.... Among this book's many conclusions and stimulating suggestions for further research is the simple but often overlooked notion that the processes of EC law-making and administration have social, cultural and political `spill-over' effects, which add not only to the clusters of meanings people attach to concepts of `citizenship' and `sovreignty' but also the reconstruction of civil, social, and political rights and duties for all European residents and citizens. Perhaps the biggest achievement of this book is the clarity it brings to the complicated issues that are entailed in any debate about national citizenship and EC social and economic safeguard for `its' people.... The notable achievement of this book, a rare event in most social science of the EC, is that it clearly establishes the state of scholarly debate about citizenship, in order to set both future research agendas and a starting point for the academic analysis of citizenship in the new era of the European Union.... Meehan has crafted what will become an enduring scholarly synthesis of many social, scientific and social policy views of citizenship and the new Europe.... I, for one, look forward to the next edition of this book, which, I am certain, will include a sophisticated analysis of citizenship in the post-Maastricht era' - Irish Political Studies `Her excellent analysis of the Union's supranational legal system undermines the assertion that there is no internal dynamic to integration; recommended reading by anyone wishing to understand the direct impact of the Union on daily lives' - The Political Quarterly `This book represents a competent drawing together of a great deal of disparate material and its effective application to developments in the EC.... in general it is concise and discusses complex ideas in an accessible way' - Journal of Social Policy