Restructuring Europe From Its Margins. Overseas and their Integration within EU’s Space

Focusing our attention on the phenomena, places and rules that can be viewed as lying at the margins often reveals much of the functioning of core elements and systemic trends. The overseas territories of EU Member States, with their specific status and history and with the peculiar situation of their inhabitants, represent in this sense an intriguing illustration of the above. Indeed, they are the outermost extremities of Europe, from historical, geographical and juridical points of view. These regions are particularly revealing of the mechanisms of restructuring of the main features ofmodern statehood – such as membership, territory and authority – as they are occurring in Europe today, fromthe national to the local level, fromthe continental scale to the global. This also implies the redefinition of the ties that link the former imperial territories to European nation states, as well as their integration, in some cases partial, to the j uridical, political and commercial order of the European Union. The situation of the Overseas is truly paradigmatic of these transformations, which is for two sets of reasons. First, Overseas territories are a privileged observatory of the interrelation between the different citizenship statuses – regional, 8 national and supranational – and the reshaping of modern territoriality. Second, Overseas citizenships, despite substantial differences fromone case to another, developed ‘at themargins’ of nationality. The impact of European integration on these regions has produced, on the one hand, a progressive homogeneization of the status of their citizens with respect to the homeland and, on the other hand, regional citizenships which have been acting as a factor of differentiation within national citizenship. Therefore, it is possible to say that European citizenship has had an integrating impact on regional citizenships and that these have in turn also worked as elements of reverse discrimination. This chapter aims to define and interpret the dialectic between citizenship, nationality and territoriality that is at play in the interaction between Overseas regions, Member States and EU law