Boldrini urges EU citizenship criteria

(ANSA) - Rome, February 8 - Lower House Speaker Laura Boldrini on Monday called for common European citizenship criteria. "We need a European citizenship because each country (has) different criteria...and we should have common standards instead," she told a conference of European parliamentary progressives in Rome.
    "We need strong political parties, common electoral procedures, and transnational party lists," she added.
    "If Schengen breaks down, so will Europe," Boldrini continued.
    "We would betray the past and compromise the future. We must give citizens more security but this must be done vie more Europe, more cooperation between intelligence and police forces".
    Boldrini added that "a battle to wrest short-term national advantages is not enough, because national interests are one with the interests of Europe".
    "Who if not you can defend social equality and the supranational vocation," she said. "The new frontier for progressive forces is Europeism".