Do people genuinely feel they are a 'European Citizen'? And why?

[mrsvilliers]

Genuinely interested and not having a dig at anybody. This has come up on my social media a lot recently and culminated today in DM informing me she had managed to dredge up an Irish relative from somewhere which meant she could apply for an Irish passport. When I asked her why she informed me she was a European citizen and want to remain one. Fair enough but I am genuinely baffled. I speak two European languages, have travelled, worked and lived extensively in Europe and would never refer to myself as a European citizen. European yes, in that I am not African or Asian or North/South American etc but not in reference to being a citizen. Honestly genuinely interested and can't ask on social media as would get flayed!!

I think of myself as English then European. I've lived in a couple of European countries and felt at home.

Good question.

I used to feel more like an European citizen when I lived away from my home country. And less when I'm home.

Based on that, I suppose it's fairly easy to think more of your own country when you never lived out of it.

I feel European and do not want my European citizenship to be taken away from me.

Yes I am very sad to be having my European citizenship taken away from me against my will. I have lived in France and travelled regularly to Frankfurt to work. I am gutted.

Those international ties are really precious and it is a great shame that the EU is so inward looking that it cannot recognise that each member state has a unique relationship with the wider world.

I really am not sure what you are getting at here, because immigration to the UK from Australia is not determined by the EU, but by UK immigration law. Individual EU nations recognise their countries' historic relationships with other states: the French for example have specific nationality laws that apply only to Algerians, in recognition of the two countries' recent colonial history.

Threepineapples I suppose when you put it that way I didn't really think about it. I always had private health insurance rather than relying on the EHIC but otherwise it felt quite normal. As opposed to when I worked in Russia and needed visas/work permits/registration etc etc. I suppose the differences in the countries struck me more than the similarities. I do wonder if maybe how competent I feel in a language affects how I feel about a country. France for example is an easy place for me to visit but somewhere like Hungary would feel very foreign.

It manifests both in the lack of freedom to have bilateral trading arrangements and in the fact that the only way a nation state can control immigration is to tighten up the rules for non-EU migrants. I agree that I would prefer something similar to the French approach, but given the pressure this country has faced to reduce net migration it is not surprising that we don't.

I do. I would describe myself as both British and European (meaning EU citizen by that).

I've been surprised over the last few weeks that this seems to be unusual.

I only speak English. I have travelled a lot and briefly lived abroad (not-EU).

The thought of no longer being an EU citizen upsets me, now it is a merely matter of when that comes to an end.

I like my red passport. I like have one like friends, just with a different cover. I'm weird.

Misti can I ask why you have never taken on the nationality of where you're living? I have friends in France who took French citizenship and consider themselves French to the extent that they didn't even vote in the referendum. So just curious really as to differenthe attitudes.

No I am born and bred Cornish

Yes, I used to live in another EU country and have strong ties to Europe. I'm European in more than passport.

I'm British too.

Yes I do.

European countries have so much in common. I think European civilisation and culture are so rich, precious and (nowadays) fragile. If we don't work together it will all be consigned to history books soon.

I feel English first, British second. Not European but still desperately sad about the outcome

I am completely English for generations but I feel European and am upset that that part of me is being taken away.

I passionately want the UK to stay together and in the EU and the thought of the logical conclusion to all this - that Scotland votes to leave the UK as well - leaves me bereft. I don't want to be a 'little Englander'. I feel British and European more than I feel English.

I have never described myself as European. Only British (occasionally Irish when sports-related). Even though I speak French and lived in France, I genuinely feel more comfortable in and relate more to the African country I currently live in.

The cynic in me feels that, when someone says they feel European, it's more related to the bourgeoisie attitude, continental elegance and culture associated with France, Italy etc rather than the homophobic, anti-gay attitudes of Latvia or anti-migrant attitudes displayed by Hungary for example.

I come from London and have lived in Paris and it was less of a culture shock than when I lived in a small city in the Midlands (nothing at all wrong with the Midlands, it's just that not living in a big city was very different). Many European countries are closer to where I live than many parts of the UK. I grew up in a part of London where many of my neighbours were expats from other parts of Europe.

However, being completely honest, a lot of this pre-dates free movement of people. I don't feel less European post Brexit.

I feel Geordie first then English, British and then European.

I will always feel European because I have always travelled there and because the UK will always be part of Europe.

Not being part of the EU or an EU Citizen will make me feel less European, it's just a title.

Thanks mrsvilliers I find this fascinating because for me citizenship and identity are completely different things. Citizenship gives me rights (and responsibilities) I wouldn't otherwise have and I take that quite seriously.

Culturally I don't really identify strongly as European, I feel English (sense of humour, quite like it when it rains, etc ). Whereas ancestrally, if you like, I identify with a hotchpotch of Cornish, Cockney and Spanish

I wonder if we had had a revolution or something, and become a republic, people would answer differently.

Again feel European because England is in Europe geographically. I also regularly work in Europe and with ( for the time being at least) big American companies who see partners in London as a good base to organise their European affairs from.
I find America culturally weird - guns, Disney, more race issues etc whereas feel more at home in Europe

I deeply value my European citizenship and have empathy for those like me living in the UK having their European citizenship snatched from them.

Plymouthian (but my heart is Cornish, as is my house), English, British. Despite having lived in Belgium for a decade, I do not feel European, I have far more in common with the Americans I know in terms of humour, irony (yes, they do irony), cultural references, outlook, than I do with the Europeans.

I do not however, expect to be chucked out, as initially we were here with HM Forces, and now dh works for an organisation that also has a specific status for its employees and their families that outweighs Belgian residence laws.

Calamara the point I'm trying to make is that citizenship and identity are not the same thing. It's perfectly possible to identify much more strongly as and still believe a wider political union that encompasses a number of nation states can have benefits.

You're asking why for a feeling, I'm not sure there is a good answer to that.

For me I guess my family and I have been mobile enough that I feel "at home" in a couple of continental European countries. And having made use of my European citizenship and the possibilities it provided, it would feel very hypocritical for me to denounce it. I will be sad to lose it to say the least.
Fundamentally I'd rather be a smaller part of a bigger and more diverse thing.

Yes I feel European.

Every part of my life is a mix of elements from different European cultures, with some non European thrown in but on a day to day obviously level more European.

I live in Germany and most days only speak English to my family except when teaching it, German to everyone outside the house - I have two jobs, for one I only speak German and local dialect (the other is teaching English obviously).

My husband is German - ironically he spends his entire work day speaking English because it is the business language in his company. He reports to an Irish boss and has colleagues who are mostly from Italy, Spain, Germany, Poland and Czech republic (though some non EU too, not as many) and English is their common language.

My primary age kids go to very tiny local village schools where previously they were the only foreigners, though now there are a couple of others - a Russian boy, a Czech family and a Bulgarian girl.

My eldest is at a large secondary school and just in her class of 30 there are two Polish girls who speak Polish and German equally well, and and two Italian children who speak Italian and German equally well, just as DD is bilingual English/German.

We drive to Italy for our usual summer holidays - it takes a couple of hours, we go through Austria on the way. My kids are not afraid of languages and have a smattering of Italian which they like to use when buying bakery goods in the mornings. We can drive to Croatia too, where DH's uncle and grandma live, without ever having to show a passport. I love that we can move between countries so easily, and that it works both ways.

My "German" PIL are actually Croatian and the descendant of parents from the part of (now) Poland that used to be Germany.

I never felt the need to apply for a German passport, to answer the inevitable question, because I am not German, but I am European. Until Friday a British passport was a European passport (almost, because the UK has always kept its boarders due to never joining Schengen so it has always been far more hassle to get back into the UK than to move around Europe).

I am applying for German citizenship now, because I want to stay in the EU. My kids already have duel nationality obviously. I count myself bloody lucky to have the option, unlike people living in Britian with no grounds on which to apply for citizenship of another European country in order to stay in Europe.

To me choosing just to be British is just foolishly and damagingly limiting - like choosing to isolate any one county of the UK, put up boarders, refuse to allow free movement of people and insisting on visas and trade agreements to move people and trade between one county and another. Setting up a points system will filter people by wealth (and intrinsically linked educational level) instead of nationality effectively ... I suppose then there will be disproportionately more wealthy ex pats in the UK, perhaps that is the aim...

I do wonder where on earth the UK is supposed to be, if not in Europe... The Leave supporters seem to think you cannot be British and European, which is a bit like thinking you can't be Welsh and British, or a Londoner and Englsih.

I don't feel like a European citizen. To me the EU means rules and regulations, the nanny state. They are politically different from us, they are much more socialist. We are not a good fit.