Granting the Right to Vote for the E uropean P arliament to Resident Third‐Country Nationals: Civic Citizenship Revisited

The EU grants rights to third‐country nationals ( TCN s) and strives to approximate their rights to those of Union citizens. Up to now, the approximation has extended to social and economic matters. This article investigates whether political rights, notably voting rights for the E uropean P arliament ( EP ), should also be approximated. To this end, the analysis applies D ahl's democratic principles of ‘coercion’ and ‘all affected interests’ as well as B auböck's principle of ‘stakeholding’ to the position of TCN s in the EU . Against that background, it explores the relevance of arguments for and against granting TCN s the right to vote in E uropean elections and submits that voting rights should be granted to long‐term resident TCN s. The author then proposes including TCN voting rights in the legal framework for EP elections and concludes by suggesting the use of the concept of civic citizenship to express political approximation of TCN s to EU citizens.