European civil society and citizenship: Complementary or exclusionary concepts?

In the European integration process the two concepts of citizenship and of civil society have been introduced by the EU institutions and policy-makers in order to build support for the new supranational polity. However, the concepts have emerged at different moments in time and have been defined in such a way that they appear nearly exclusionary. Only during the recent constitutional debate has an attempt been made to make “European civil society” and “European citizenship” more complementary.