In practice, to be a citizen of the European Union means to be a citizen of one of the member states of the EU

To be a citizen of the European Union means to be citizen of one of the member states of the EU .

The most rabid Europhiles would be more than happy to abolish member-level citizenship altogether.

Among many Europeans , there is a lingering reluctance to hand over powers of naturalization to the European ruling elite.

The end of state control of citizenship in the U.S. is the end to state-level control of naturalization of citizenship.

The EU , however, allows citizens of member states to travel freely and obtain employment in any other EU member state.

This would do much to eliminate political diversity within the EU and ultimately help forge a single unified EU state.

Top-down federal citizenship laws provide nothing that can’t be had through interstate agreements.

Certainly, there is nothing novel about the idea that a resident ought to become invested in the community in which he proposes to become politically active. That is a common-sensical notion long advocated even by laissez-faire libertarians. Ryan McMaken is executive editor at the Mises Institute , a former economist for the State of Colorado , and the author of two books: Breaking Away: The Case of Secession, Radical Decentralization, and Smaller Polities and Commie Cowboys : The Bourgeoisie and the Nation-State in the Western Genre. Original article link.