Original Paragraph
European Citizenship
Everybody who is a citizen of a country in the European Union is
automatically an EU citizen. As you probably know, citizenship means belonging
to a community in which every citizen has certain rights and duties. Therefore,
European Citizenship means belonging to the European Union. There are a number
of ways to obtain EU citizenship, namely, acquisition by birth, descent,
marriage or naturalisation (which means spending at least a certain amount of
your life in a country legally). An EU citizenship has various advantages: A
well-known advantage of EU citizenship is the right to move and reside freely
within the EU, under the protection of the diplomatic and consular authorities
of any EU country. In practice, this means a British person can move to Greece
and work there without having to ask for permission from the local authorities.
Should this expectation not be met, EU citizens can sign a petition at the
European Parliament and lodge a complaint to the European Ombudsman. People
with a European citizenship can also directly influence politics by either
casting their voice in an EU-wide election or even standing as a candidate for
the European Parliament. However, there are also disadvantages about EU
citizenship: For example, the right to reside and work in another country does
not necessarily mean being accepted by its people immediately and many have to
face racism and prejudice every day. To make matters worse, local authorities are
mostly incapable of providing social services such as housing, education and
health care. While they are struggling to master this challenge, the citizens
blame the immigrants for allegedly taking over their country and stealing their
jobs. Some also fear the loss of their national identity and cultural heritage,
which is a common cause for xenophobia. After all, being a European citizen
does not only bring important rights with it, but in order to grant the
European community to live together peacefully, each and every citizen has to
live up to their responsibilities.
(329 words)
Final Paragraph
European Citizenship
Every
citizen of a country in the European Union is automatically an EU citizen.
There are a number of ways to obtain EU citizenship, namely, acquisition by
birth, descent, marriage or naturalisation. EU citizenship has various
advantages, for example, people with European citizenship can directly
influence EU politics by either casting their voice in EU-wide elections or
even standing as a candidate for the European Parliament. Another well-known
benefit is the right to move and reside freely within the EU, under the
protection of the diplomatic and consular authorities of any EU country. In
practice, this means a British person can move to Greece and work there without
having to ask for permission from the local authorities. However, there are
also disadvantages about the right of free movement within the EU: The right to
reside and work in another country does not necessarily mean being accepted by
its people immediately and many immigrants have to face racism and prejudice
every day. To make matters worse, more and more local residents also fear the
loss of their national identity and cultural heritage, which is a common cause
for xenophobia. Being a European citizen not only entails important
rights and benefits, but in order to allow the European community to live
together peacefully, each and every citizen has to live up to their responsibilities.
(222
words)
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