Subsidiarity

The EU’s Hospitality and Welcome Culture: Conceiving the “No Human Being Is Illegal” Principle in the EU Fundamental Freedoms and Migration Governance

“…The decentralization process caused a transformation of the Catholic Church and subsidiarity provided a leading position to its charities, citizens, associations, civil society organizations (CSOs), and nonprofit organizations. So far, there has been a strong and vibrant quarrel between “Social Democrats – demanding public social services being delivered by the local state – and Christian Democrats arguing that Churches and their charities ought to be the main deliverers of public social services.” In 1961/1962, the German Supreme Court’s verdict asserted that “the local state and nonprofit organizations ought to collaborate together as partners by producing public social services.” From this viewpoint, subsidiarity can be conceived as a division of labor between local/central administration and nonprofit organizations: “(1) the state must guarantee the legal rights of citizens and is responsible for financing their legal demands; and (2) nonprofit organizations produce public social services and are involved in the official process of policymaking.” This kind of “partnership” between state and non-state actors (e.g., nonprofit organizations, philanthropic foundations, global/local CSOs) became functional and effective in the EU (Anheier and Seibel 1990 ; Anheier 1991 ; Anheier and Toepler 1999 ; Backhaus-Maul 2010 ).…”

“…From a legal perspective, the state is still responsible and has the power to decide; however, nonprofit organizations are developing with their resources and expertise a strong bargaining position.” From the perspective of welfare pluralism, the social productivity of the CSOs as a third sector is getting more attention. Subsidiarity remains as an effective and practical tool to “distribute rights and responsibilities between citizens and organizations, civil society and state or the nonprofit world, and the market economy, hierarchically” (Backhaus-Maul 2010 , pp. 1494–1495).…”

“…Co-responsibility between states’ authorities and the third sector is guaranteed by collaborative actions and a partnership approach. Thus, subsidiarity further extends co-responsibility between state and non-state actors in migration governance (Aliu and Aliu 2019 ; Anheier and Seibel 1990 ; Anheier 1991 ; Anheier and Toepler 1999 ; Backhaus-Maul 2010 ; Colombo 2012 ). Similarly, human rights activism initiatives of both individuals and institutions offer co-responsibility forms in “heterarchical (non-hierarchical)” relations.…”