In our own times the consensus with respect to the validity of the European policies goes into crisis, by reducing the sense of belonging in a common destiny of its citizens. The recent case of Brexit is an example of the malaise that hit European citizenship. Specifically, European citizenship poses a definitory problem: the status of European citizen depends on being citizens of one of EU member states. This dependence, which determines a relationship of superposition, tends to mask the difference of the two forms of citizenship. The sense of national membership prevails, from a subjective point of view, compared to the common membership of the EU. Through a relational sociological analysis, we will locate the specific characteristics of European citizenship. The positive affirmation of European citizenship identifies a collective identity linked to the individual national identity, inspired by a «reflective model» capable of embracing the extraneous. Relational analysis will be supplemented by the study of social representations that compose the Italian journalistic narrative. The articles published in the last four decades by some of the major national newspapers will be analyzed, reaching a conceptual synthesis of the predominant argument patterns that draw the outlines of European citizenship in the Italian context. The aim of this paper is to understand the meta-conceptual substrate which allows citizens to relate themselves to the European reality.
