Responding to free movement: quarantining mobile union citizens in European welfare states

Abstract

It is often held that free movement within the European Union and the expansion of social rights of mobile citizens by the European Court of Justice place national welfare states under pressure, potentially leading to welfare retrenchment. Yet thorough empirical investigation of this claim has been surprisingly limited. In this article, we distinguish three possible responses to such pressures: 'embedding', the inclusion of Union citizens in the welfare system; 'quarantining', restrictive measures excluding mobile Union citizens; and 'retrenchment', general cutbacks in benefit programmes. Through a longitudinal comparative case study of generous non-contributory welfare benefits in Denmark and the Netherlands, we find general welfare retrenchment in response to Europeanisation strikingly limited. Instead, welfare states remain resilient by creatively quarantining mobile Union citizens from the coverage of social benefits. Legal cultures and degrees of politicization are important factors, shaping the pathways towards these creative but exclusionary responses.

‘Social Citizenship’ at the Street Level? EU Member State Administrations Setting a Firewall

“…By studying the application of ECJ case law on social citizenship by Member States' local authorities (which are granted discretion), this contribution has addressed three gaps in research: First, in order to describe and compare Member State practices, a typology of shades of compliance was developed, which goes beyond the prevailing dichotomy of compliance and non‐compliance. This typology allows for a more nuanced assessment of Member State practices in the light of ECJ case law and demonstrates to what extent the impact of the ECJ is limited – while the ECJ required Member States to assess the benefit claims of economically inactive EU citizens on a case‐by‐case basis by taking factors such as a degree of integration into account (what I call generous compliance ), Austrian administrative practices have differed and limited the Court's influence (this finding is confirmed for other Member States by Kramer et al, ). Austrian authorities have interpreted EU law in a way which implies less Europe (from manageable compliance to specified containment and partly to categorical containment ) and have set a firewall.…”

Has the Court changed, or have the cases? The deservingness of litigants as an element in Court of Justice citizenship adjudication

“…Just as there may be trends at the Court, there may also be trends in the nature of litigants, and the behaviour of national judges and authorities. Trends in outcomes in Luxembourg may therefore be (partly) the product of trends at national level -just as it seems plausible that the cases on social assistance for noneconomically active mobile citizens are partly explained by changing migration patterns, and partly by national authorities seeking to circumscribe a difficult policy area by challenging unmeritorious claimants (Kramer 2016;Kramer et al 2018). It may be, to borrow a phrase, that national authorities and judges read the morning papers (Blauberger et al 2018).…”

“…If the latter, is that because the kind of mobile citizen needing public help is changing -because of enlargement, or the economic crisis -or are national authorities becoming more skilled, selective or strategic in choosing when to refuse benefits? (Blauberger 2012;Kramer 2016;Kramer et al 2018) This article does not answer those questions, but its findings suggest that they need to be asked.…”

ECJ´s New Role – Guardian of Open but not Socially Inclusive Europe?

“…They limited the eligibility for certain types of social assistance, adopted caps on total annual amount of grants, tightened controls of benefi ciaries etc. See for details in Kramer, Sampson Thierry & van Hooren, 2018, pp. 1501-1521 non-compliance with the EU law extending further the social rights of migrating EU citizens (Blauberger, Heindlmaier & Kramer et al, 2018, pp.…”