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

Abstract

European integration, and especially the European Court of Justice, has challenged the national character of social rights; the latter have become increasingly transnational. This contribution examines the impact of the Court at the street level. It analyses how Member State administrations handle the social rights of mobile EU citizens in practice in case they are granted discretion. Therefore, a framework of shades of compliance is developed that captures Member State responses to EU law beyond the dichotomy of compliance and non‐compliance. I argue that Member State administrations tend to make the access to social benefits difficult. Still, there may be differences in the shade of compliance on the ground. Surprisingly, these differences cannot be explained by the party‐political environment but depend to a high degree on exposedness. The claim is empirically supported by a comparative study of Austrian welfare (and migration) administrations' practices.

Transnational Social Protection in the Eu From a Statistical Point of View

“…There is actually a real chance, particularly due to recent case law, that this might not be possible during the first five years of legal residence when they constitute an unreasonable burden for the social assistance system. This reality demonstrates the legal uncertainty faced by economically inactive EU citizens, all the more so as access to social assistance will vary according to the conditions imposed by the public authorities based on their interpretation of the Citizens' Rights Directive and recent case law (Heindlmaier 2020).…”

Administering the Union citizen in need: Between welfare state bureaucracy and migration control

“…Aware of the declaratory character of the registration certificate, and of the fact that it was rarely revoked by the migration authority, welfare authorities from the larger cities dealing with a large number of social assistance applications changed their practices by taking over the (original) role of the migration authority ( Heindlmaier, 2020 ). After Union citizens applied for social assistance, officials would retrospectively assess their lawful residence themselves, without considering registration certificates or consulting the migration authority (interviews social authorities, January, October 2016).…”