In the 1999 Tampere Agenda, the European Council committed itself to creating ‘a set of uniform rights’ for third country nationals with a view to promoting better integration. Subsequently, the Commission suggested that this could lead to a new status of ‘civic citizenship’. Since this idea was floated, the Union has adopted a considerable body of legislation on immigration. This article examines these instruments, most notably the Long-Term Residents Directive, in order to decipher both the criteria for membership of civic citizenship and the rights and duties attached to this imagined status. A fragile and complex framework has been constructed for third country nationals, whilst in the same period the status of Union citizenship has been strengthened by the Court of Justice. This reveals a tension between the exclusive prerogatives of Union citizenship and the objective of improving migrant integration.
European Public Law