Europeanization of citizenship policy

The aim of this paper is to determine to what extent it is possible to speak about the Europeanization of national citizenship policies and what are the conditions and assumptions for this Europeanization to proceed further. First we inquire whether any convergence in the European Union of national citizenship policies can be observed. For this purpose we call upon the CPI-Citizenship Policy Index developed by Marc Morjé Howard and his followers, and evaluate the data this yields. Then we discuss other possible Europeanization criteria, including directly easing requirements for obtaining citizenship in one of the EU states for persons already having citizenship in another. Paradoxically, only a few EU states provide in their citizenship laws for the possibility that nationals of other EU states gain the citizenship of their state by naturalization. We briefly evaluate the possibilities for the development of general political rights for EU citizens (for instance, granting voting rights, to permanent residents from other EU states, in elections to national parliaments). Finally, we analyze the case of Lithuania with respect to assumptions for, and impediments toward, the Europeanization of citizenship policy