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The paper takes the recent (summer 2008) intra-EU-European clash between Italy and Romania as a starting point for a critical analysis of the present state of a EU-European citizenship. The paper argues that the central problem of a EU-European citizenship, as evidenced in the clash, lies in the fissures between the construction of citizenship as a political identity associated with the protective functions of a nationally-framed "state" and "Europe" as a topos of a historical-cultural and normative identity claim. It relies in its analysis on the general literature on (EU-) citizenship and on Roma in Europe; Italian, Romanian and international news coverage; interviews with Romanian politicians, intellectuals, and a leading Roma activist as the summer events unfolded; materials provided by various national and transnational organizations. That the normative invocation of a common European identity at the moment appears less and less able to muster the force necessary to check the political allure of a return to the strong nationally-framed protective state is seen as part and parcel of the larger crisis of institutional reform that presently defines the EU-European project of regional integration. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]