"Citizenship in Europe and the Construction of Gender by Law in the European Charter of Fundamental Rights"

The concept of citizenship gained the attention of several political thinkers during the 1990s. This is evident from the responses of various European law experts regarding situations where legal recognition was used to define European citizenship as administered by the Maastricht Treaty of the European Union. Article 8 of the Treaty states how people who are of the nationality of any of the EU's Member States should be deemed citizens of the Union. Also, it states that these citizens are entitled to the rights described by the Treaty, and they are also required to fulfill the duties that are imposed by the Treaty. Because this is a transnational phenomenon, European citizenship cannot be treated merely as having legal status of belonging to a particular state. As the European Charter of Fundamental Rights was proclaimed a few years after, focus was given to Europe's social dimension. This chapter explains the notion of citizen as discussed within the Charter, specifically on how gender is constructed and how gendered a particular person is.