Growing concerns and hostility towards continuing large-scale flows of immigrants following the two rounds of EU enlargement and high levels of net migration played a major part in the Brexit referendum result for the UK to leave the EU. So too had welfare chauvinism, or the belief that welfare benefits should be restricted to citizens, come to the fore in negative attitudes to EU immigration, reflecting a rejection of EU migrants as fellow citizens. As the article shows, proposals as of summer 2017 for the status of current EU citizens in the UK indicate a desire by the UK government to incorporate current EU citizens within the far more restrictive British immigration rules, thereby curtailing some of their basic free movement rights, especially in relation to future family members. Leaked proposals for future EU citizens post-Brexit are to bring them within a single overall immigration system covering EU and non-EU migrants and applying differential rights of residence to skilled and less skilled, thereby stratifying EU migrants according to educational level and labour market sector. This would represent a return to the status of mobile workers with conditional rights of residence and social entitlements similar to those faced by non-EU migrants.

This article analyses the visibility of European Union (EU) citizens in EU news during the 2009 European Parliament election. It argues that the presence of EU citizens in EU news is vital for responsiveness of European governance. First, the theoretical notion of EU citizens is considered. Next, a new way of defining EU citizens is proposed: EU citizens are divided into national and supranational EU citizens. The visibility of EU citizens in EU news of 27 EU member states is analysed aiming to explain cross-country differences. The paper is based on a large-scale content analysis of TV and newspaper articles gathered during the 2009 European Parliament election. To explain different levels of visibility, a multi-level analysis is carried out. The results suggest that EU citizens are visible in the EU news, yet, their presence strongly varies across countries. The findings indicate that explanations for different levels of visibility can be found at both the media and country level.

On 4 March 2010 the Court of Justice of the European Union issued its first judgment on the conformity with EU law of national provisions implementing Directive 2003/86/EC on the right to family reunification. In the case Chakroun v. Minister van Buitenlandse Zaken the Court had to rule on the Dutch implementing measures concerning resource requirements and the concepts of family reunification and family formation.