When EU Citizens become Foreigners

Although EU citizenship has matured as an institution, a combination of hope and caution ought to accompany the tale of its evolution. Contradictory processes of inclusion and greater equalisation coexist with exclusionary logics. These would have to be taken into account, and be addressed, by assessments of its present state and its future evolution. A focus on three key manifestations of state sovereignty, namely, the erasure of citizenship status, expulsion and the disappearance of individuals owing to extraordinary rendition, sheds light onto the edges of EU citizenship and the undesirable effects of untrammelled state power on the lives of individuals. Probing into the moments when EU citizens are treated as aliens or foreigners, and the troublesome ambiguities, tensions and limitations surrounding them, reveals the gaps in the protection of EU citizens and the constraints that stand in the way of change in the institutional scheme of things.