European Free Mobility and Participatory Democracy: Knowledge and Digital Technology as a Bridge

ABSTRACT

Over the last decade, before the Covid-19 pandemic emergency, the share of EU mobile citizens increased by 0.9% – a growth that may have been favored by the consolidation of the beneficial conditions fortified by the European Single Market's four freedoms, namely, the free movement of people, goods, services, and capital. Encouraged by the possibility to travel freely, study, work, and live across borders (and benefitting from the chance to access better prices, higher environmental and social standards, as well as more comprehensive consumer protection), European citizens of all ages have been increasingly moving across EU borders. However, practical experience shows that there is still much to be done at the local level to make European mobility sustainable without creating severe difficulties in maintaining and achieving fundamental rights (work, vote, education, information, assistance, and free movement). Based on an identikit of mobile citizens within the EU, it is assumed that they can play a role in facilitating the path of social cohesion both at the level of individual states and in the common European area. To demonstrate this, this chapter presents two international initiatives coordinated by Italian institutions, both supported by the European Rights, Equality and Citizenship (REC) Program. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.