La citoyenneté européenne : les mesures transitoires concernant la libre circulation des travailleurs comme productrices de différences

The object of the present article are the EU legal and the political documents concerning the transitional arrangements on free movement of workers that were put into being for the EU citizens coming from the Eastern countries during the enlargements of 2004 and 2007. The paper offers a reading of the transitional measures as an instrument of government and among their effects one of the most notable is the creation of a European citizenship that works as a difference machine, producing differential relations within the group of EU citizens. This is done through the attribution of differential rights, especially concerning the right to free movement and the right to work within the EU. European citizenship is thus working as a dispositif or technique of differential government, and the transitional measures have relevant political effects on the hierarchy of political subjects and on the redefinition of EU statehood. European citizenship can thus be read as the result of a process of statehood restructuring, and as one of its main elements. This paper focuses on the way in which the right of European citizenship has relevant political and concrete effects, even though its justifications are formulated in economic or legal terms.