Should Citizenship Be Considered a Form of Inherited Capital? | Brexit and EU Citizenship

Talk2EU
2 days ago
5 min read

Brexit, EU Citizenship and What We Owe Future Generations

For most people, citizenship is little more than a passport in a drawer that appears once or twice a year. Yet citizenship is one of the most important legal statuses a person can hold. It shapes where we can live, work, study, retire and build a future.

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Since Brexit, many Britons have become more aware of the value of citizenship and the opportunities it can provide. Some have explored family histories in search of an Irish, German, Italian or other European connection. In doing so, many made an interesting discovery.

Citizenship is not merely something we possess. It is also something we inherit (2).

That discovery raises a wider question that extends far beyond Brexit.

Should citizenship be viewed as a form of inherited capital?

Citizenship as an Inheritance

Most inheritances are financial. For example, people inherit money, heirlooms and property. Others inherit businesses, debt, culture, language and family traditions.

Recent debates about inheritance tax have centred on a familiar question: what obligations does one generation owe to the next?

When governments change inheritance rules, there is often fierce debate about how much wealth should be retained by the state before it reaches the next generation, and what should pass to children and grandchildren.

But financial inheritance is not the only inheritance people receive.

One could argue that citizenship is among the most valuable inheritances a person can receive.

Unlike money or property, citizenship carries with it a collection of rights, opportunities and freedoms that can shape an entire life.

Where you can live.
Where you can work.
What education you can access.
What political rights you enjoy.
What protections you can rely upon.
What opportunities you may eventually pass to your own children.

Viewed through this lens, citizenship begins to look less like a simple legal status and more like a form of inherited civic capital (4).

If that is true, it raises another question.

Do current generations have any responsibility to preserve that civic capital for future generations?

Citizenship and Intergenerational Responsibility

Modern societies increasingly recognise intergenerational obligations in other areas. We discuss environmental sustainability because we accept that one generation should not consume resources in ways that damage the prospects of those who come after us. We worry about public debt because future taxpayers may bear the consequences of decisions made today.

Why do we rarely ask similar questions about citizenship and civic opportunity?

Brexit provides an interesting case study.

Brexit and the Loss of EU Citizenship Rights

Before Brexit, British citizenship automatically carried EU citizenship. British citizens could live, work, study, retire and settle across much of Europe. Those opportunities could be passed to future generations because EU citizenship was attached to British citizenship itself.

We were British, and we were also European.

The European Court of Justice frequently described EU citizenship as a “fundamental status” of Member State nationals (3).

After Brexit, British citizenship remained, but the inheritance attached to it changed.

Future generations of British citizens now inherit a different, and arguably smaller, set of opportunities from those inherited by previous generations. They inherit British citizenship, but not the European citizenship rights that once accompanied it.

Can Democracies Reduce the Rights of Future Citizens?

Whether you support Brexit or rejoining is not the point. The deeper question is whether democracies should consider the intergenerational effects of major constitutional decisions more carefully.

When governments increase borrowing, we ask whether it is fair to leave the bill to future generations.

When governments change inheritance taxes, we ask whether it is fair to reduce what future generations might otherwise receive.

Should we ask similar questions when constitutional decisions alter the opportunities attached to citizenship?

Can one generation legitimately reduce the civic inheritance that future generations would otherwise have received?

Most people would probably answer yes.

But should there be limits?

It doesn’t mean that democracies can’t change, because the rights attached to citizenship have always evolved. Voting rights changed, empires fell, free movement arrangements have been created and removed, and governments altered the benefits and obligations associated with citizenship.

The question is not whether change should be possible. Rather, whether decisions that permanently reduce people’s rights and opportunities attached to citizenship should require stronger justification than ordinary political choices.

If citizenship is a form of inherited civic capital, perhaps future generations deserve greater consideration before that capital is diminished on their behalf.

Birthright Citizenship, Dual Nationality and Global Trends

This question is becoming increasingly relevant around the world.

In the United States, birthright citizenship has become politically contested. Debates continue over who should automatically acquire citizenship at birth and whether citizenship should remain an unconditional inheritance or become more restricted (1).

Across Europe, discussions about migration, nationality, integration and identity increasingly revolve around citizenship. Who should receive it? Who should inherit it? Can it be shared? Can it be restricted?

These debates show that citizenship is not merely a legal status. It is also a social, political and cultural asset.

The rise of dual and multiple citizenship adds another layer of complexity.

Increasing numbers of people now hold more than one citizenship, often through ancestry, marriage or migration. For some, a second citizenship is a recognition of heritage. For others, it is a source of security, mobility and opportunity. The acceptance of dual citizenship has expanded considerably across the world over recent decades (5).

This raises further issues.

Is it fair that some people can inherit multiple citizenships while others inherit only one?

Should citizenship be viewed as a privilege, a right, an asset, or something else entirely?

Should taxation follow citizenship, residence, or both?

Do future generations have any claim to the opportunities enjoyed by previous generations?

There are no straightforward answers, but the question is important.

We increasingly accept that one generation should not deplete environmental capital for the next. Yet we rarely discuss whether there is such a thing as civic capital, and whether we have a duty to preserve it.

This article does not argue that Brexit was right or wrong, nor that any particular citizenship arrangement should be restored.

It asks a bigger question:

If citizenship carries rights, freedoms and opportunities that can be passed between generations, should we think about it differently?

What Do We Owe Future Generations?

Perhaps citizenship is more than a legal status.

Perhaps it is a form of inherited civic capital, passed from one generation to the next, carrying opportunities that can shape lives long into the future.

If so, decisions about citizenship are not only about the citizens of today. They are also about those who will inherit the consequences tomorrow.

Questions of identity, mobility, nationality and belonging are increasingly debated across the world. Yet the most important question is what we are entitled to pass on to those who come after us.

That is a conversation worth having.