Intra-EU migration and social rights: an introduction

Abstract

Marshall (1950) conceptualizes citizenship as a status of membership in a community; social rights are defined as core for the ability of all citizens, irrespective of class, to more fully enjoy political and civil rights. According to Marshall, social rights encompass everything from the right to a modicum of economic welfare to the right to live the life of a civilized being according to the standards prevailing in the society. The evolution of social rights, and of the welfare state more generally, was closely linked to the establishment of the nation state. Moreover, the nation state was sovereign to limit the provision of social rights and benefits to its citizens. However, the process of European integration has gradually eroded the sovereignty of EU Member States to limit service provision and granting of benefits to their citizens and territory. Nevertheless, Member States remain the primary institutions responsible for determining the overall design of social policies in a multi-tiered polity guided by the principle of subsidiarity (Leibfried and Pierson 1995). Therefore, it is not surprising that the institutional design of social policy varies significantly within the European Union since some welfare states are built on the principle of universalism, others on promoting social stability, and others still on mitigating poverty. Moreover, concepts of social rights or social citizenship do not have a uniform meaning and applicability across the EU and the real worlds of EU citizens' social rights differ greatly among Member States (cf. Ferragina and Seeleib-Kaiser 2011; Ferragina et al. 2015). EU citizenship is a recent concept introduced by the Treaty of Maastricht (1992). It is of particular importance as previously the rights ensured by the Treaties and the right to free movement had been largely limited to workers and self-employed persons. Since Maastricht, they can be enjoyed also by economically inactive persons. EU citizens have the right to reside on the territory of another Member State for a period longer than three months, if they are 'workers' or 'self-employed

Migration and Access to Welfare Benefits in the EU: The Interplay between Residence and Nationality

“…The most advanced scheme in this regard is the EU social security coordination. Together with the extensive jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the EU, the EU coordination often guarantees that mobile EU citizens have an easier access to social benefits compared to TCNs, while also limiting states' margin of manoeuvre in freely regulating EU migrants' access to welfare (Seeleib-Kaiser and Pennings 2018;Schmidt et al 2018).…”

Linguistic Diversity as a Challenge for Street-Level Bureaucrats in a Monolingually-Oriented Organisation

“…In an increasingly mobile world, the organisation of social security faces new challenges (Sabates-Wheeler, Koettl, & Avato, 2011). Additionally, migrants within the EU-where a unique transnational social security system has been established-face substantial barriers when accessing welfare-related services and resources (Scheibelhofer & Holzinger, 2018;Seeleib-Kaiser & Pennings, 2018). For example, studies from Germany and Austria have shown that the enforcement of German as the language of administration and communication is the main informal barrier in this regard (Holzinger, 2020;Ratzmann, 2018).…”

‘We don’t worry that much about language’: street-level bureaucracy in the context of linguistic diversity

“…Another tension of particular relevance in the context of the EU concerns the multilevel governance of social rights: While European integration has gradually restricted the authority of EU member states to delimit granting social rights to other EU citizens, the organisation of social security still relies on national institutions to design and provide social benefits (Seeleib-Kaiser and Pennings 2018). The organisation of social security, traditionally located within the sovereignty of the nation state, generally faces new challenges in an increasingly mobile world (Sabates-Wheeler, Koettl, and Avato 2011).…”

“…When analysing social security rights from a sociological perspective, not only must normative as well as a political-legal registers be considered, but also practical elements that encompass the mechanisms of institutional implementation and the actual experiences of access (Carmel 2013;Marshall 1977;Soysal 2012). While the EU has indeed created a unique transnational portability system to secure the social security rights of mobile Europeans, substantial access barriers still persist in practice (Scheibelhofer, Holzinger, and Regös forthcoming;Seeleib-Kaiser and Pennings 2018). A recent study of EU migrants' access to subsistence support in Germany has shown that the main informal barrier in this respect is the enforcement of German as the language of administration and communication (Ratzmann 2018).…”