In the light of heightened concern—especially among young people—with global challenges, from the climate emergency to widening income gaps, some of us might be tempted to believe that the time for a “one world community” is finally upon us. But, if we consider the only instance of a ‘global community’ so far—the European Union (EU)—we are likely to find a community where “all passports are equal, but some are more equal than others” (Castles 2005: 691, emphasis added). It is precisely this paradox which serves as the departure point for my book.

Specifically, this book investigates two related issues in the politics of contemporary citizenship. First, it examines the issue of community building processes, including differentiation and exclusion and the role assigned to and realised by citizens in the course of these processes. It is expected that these processes grant contemporary citizenship models their distinctively political function (Bosniak 2008; Isin and Nielsen 2008).

As we focus on the EU example, we notice that legal and policy discourses categorise citizens and non-citizens based on their intra-EU mobility status, country of origins and prospective economic contributions—in this order—and rather than merely on the basis of their nationality (Hansen and Hager 2010; O’Brien 2016). Accordingly, ‘first-class’ ‘Eurostars’—the EU-15 mobiles—visiting European and international students as well as high-flying economic migrants and highly skilled third country nationals (TCNs) seem to make up the most ‘desired’ segment of a novel EU community.¹ The ‘second-class’ group, for now, refers to Central and Eastern European (CEE) mobiles. While desired for their potential economic contributions, they are projected as the principal members of the EU’s very own ‘welfare’ tourist flows. These two, intra-EU mobile groups expected to interact with national and nationalist stayers and, following the refugee crisis, third class individuals; the members of a growing number of asylum seekers and refugees. If we take the first two categories as evidence of an exciting EU community emerging, the last two undoubtedly highlight the continued relevance of national communities. To explore the informal ways in which the role of citizens and non-citizens are changing in the light of these arrangements, this book investigates young peoples’ experiences of their dual memberships in the budding EU (mobile) and their (home) national communities.

Second, the book turns to the addressing two models of citizenship as present in the EU today—the national and EU models. Accordingly, citizens from 28 member states (at the time of writing) are placed as part and parcel of an all-encompassing EU citizenry (at least from a formal, legal perspective), who enjoy distinct EU rights and entitlements. Under EU citizenship, these nationals are encouraged to move, study and reside freely across the EU—the ultimate confirmation of their ‘fundamental’ legal status as transnational citizens (Olsen 2012). In fact, EU citizenship seems to be all about intra-EU mobility. And EU mobile citizens are increasingly present. Yes, the actual number of member state nationals—‘active’ EU citizens—who embark on EU mobility might seem low, making up circa 3.4% of the EU’s total population (Eurostat 2019a). Yet even this number is larger than the population of 20 of the EU’s 28 member states and has grown exponentially, by nearly 290%, following the Eastern enlargement rounds in the mid-2000s (see Table 1.1). This number is also likely to be an underestimate, with temporary intra-EU mobility flows from cross-border shopping, holidays and seasonal work—all of which occur at a larger scale—notoriously difficult to trace (European Commission 2011).