'A Spectre Is Haunting Europe’: European Citizenship in the Area of Freedom, Security, and Justice. Some Reflections on the Principles of Non-Discrimination (on the Basis of Nationality), Mutual Recognition, and Mutual Trust Originating from the European Arrest Warrant

After a reconstruction of the traditional legal setting of extradition, the paper explores the European Arrest Warrant Framework Decision’s nationality and residence clauses in their normative context: mutual recognition and mutual trust. It then discusses how these clauses have been implemented at Member States’ level and the problems encountered therein with the surrender of a state national and with (some degree of) financial solidarity that the construction of the area of freedom, security, and justice (AFSJ) presupposes. Another section tackles the position taken by the European Court of Justice (CJEU) in its case law (Kozłowski and Wolzenburg) in order to analyse how it contributes to the emergence of an AFSJ in line with current developments of the European constitutional evolution, namely the (former first pillar) acquison the European citizenship and the Member States’ common constitutional traditions on sanctioning theories, placing a paramount attention on the principle of social rehabilitation of convicted persons. Finally, the paper draws attention to European citizenship, which is at present nothing but a ‘spectre’ of the AFSJ but has great potential for a sound AFSJ construct, where state powers cannot discriminate against individuals according to their status personae.