EU citizenship as a constitutional restraint on the EU's multilevel governance of public goods

This contribution suggests a republican interpretation of EU citizenship rights based on the following three propositions: first, the more globalisation transforms national into transnational public goods, the more democratic and republican constitutionalism requires to design and implement transnational public goods treaties as democratic law empowering citizens to invoke and enforce precise and unconditional multilevel market regulations and the protection of public goods vis-à-vis multilevel governance institutions. Secondly, as EU law, such as arts 2 and 9–12 TEU, requires EU Institutions and Member States to protect constitutional, representative, participatory and deliberative democracy and limits all internal and external EU powers by fundamental rights and protection of public goods (res publica), EU citizens rightly challenge EU trade, investment and other treaties that privilege interest groups and undermine the constitutional contract of citizens as codified in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. Thirdly, just as common market and competition law inside and beyond the EU protect citizen-driven network governance and rights-based vigilance of EU citizens embedded into comprehensive protection of fundamental rights and a "social market economy" (art.3 TEU), EU institutions should respond to the legitimacy and rule-of-law crises in other areas of EU governance by reconnecting EU law with EU citizens as democratic principals of multilevel governance agents. Anti-citizen clauses in EU free trade agreements with non-European countries (such as art.30.6 CETA) and discriminatory arbitration privileges for foreign investors illustrate the authoritarian disconnect of EU bureaucrats from EU citizens; they risk undermining rule of law, constitutional democracy, and the "social market economy" inside the EU.Published version of EUI LAW WP 2017/1