The legal category under which EU citizens exercise their right to free movement – worker, jobseeker, student or economically inactive - determines access to social rights in the host state and leads to differential inclusion in the welfare state. The right to equal treatment in relation to welfare entitlements has been subject to constant litigation before the European Court of Justice, leading to the refinement of the conditions under which migrant EU citizens can access welfare and the implications of such requests for their right to reside in an EU state. Moreover, while the conditions of access to an EU host state's welfare system are set at the EU level, the delivery of welfare takes place at the national and local levels, making national administrations and bureaucrats important actors in the governance of welfare. The aim of this article is to tease out the relationship between different levels of jurisdiction in the governance of access to the welfare state. We rely on data from 11 Member States in which we monitored the application of the relevant EU legislation and case law during the time frame 2016–2020. The main trends we discern are a growing interdependence between immigration and welfare authorities and a move towards the systematic control of all EU applicants for social assistance in several states. We argue that these developments are facilitated by the turn in the CJEU's jurisprudence that limits entitlement to welfare for economically inactive EU citizens and emphasises conditionality and legal residence as the main axes determining access to the welfare state.

This contribution examines the legal powers that Dutch authorities have to restrict the right to free movement of mobile but ‘unwanted’ EU citizens, including measures that seek to expel and ban EU citizens from re-entering the Netherlands. The article defines ‘unwanted’ EU citizens as mobile EU citizens in respect of whom national authorities seek to take measures to restrict their right of residence, either on the grounds of their being an unreasonable burden on the Dutch social assistance system or in respect of public policy and public security. We analyse the relevant EU legal rules, their interpretation by the Court of Justice of the EU and their national implementation and application in order to show the legal constraints faced by national authorities when seeking to restrict EU mobility. This legal study is supplemented by a discussion of existing data on the number of EU citizens expelled or removed from the Netherlands. Our analysis suggests that, due to the legal protection enjoyed by mobile EU citizens against measures restricting their residence rights, the Dutch authorities encourage voluntary departure as a pragmatic solution to the presence of ‘unwanted’ EU citizens.

As the COVID-19 crisis developed, the International Labor Organization estimated that 4.7 percent of the global labor pool, comprising 164 million people, were migrant workers who were living and working outside their home country. While some were laid off and sent home for the lockdown, others continued working. These others were migrants performing crucial jobs in the front line of the crisis. They help to produce our food, pack our orders, and build or clean our houses, among other tasks. Many COVID-19 infections appear to be labor-related, with many of the crucial sectors exhibiting an extra-high risk of virus transmission. Migrant workers on the frontline can be low-waged, hold a temporary job, lack knowledge of their legal position and the local language, and have a limited social network and high dependency on others—such as recruiters or temporary employment agencies—for work and housing. This essay addresses these migrant vulnerabilities in the labor market and identifies measures that might simultaneously curb the vulnerabilities and account for industrial needs for labor in essential sectors. We argue that the vulnerability of migrant laborers is structural; the COVID-19 crisis has put a magnifying glass on a preexisting vulnerability and clarified the need for solutions.

This article examines the links between residence and social rights in the context of EU citizens' mobility. It builds on national replies to a questionnaire concerning the implementation and application of Directive 2004/38 at the national level. Our focus is on how the EU28 are implementing the provisions on social assistance for economically inactive EU citizens, including five relevant European Court of Justice (ECJ) judgments in this area (Brey, Dano, Alimanovic, Garcia-Nieto and Commission v UK) and the provisions on permanent residence status. Based on the national replies we argue that asking for social benefits becomes a first step towards being considered by the administration as an unreasonable burden, which leads to the termination of EU residence rights. Our analysis shows that asserting and maintaining residence rights under Articles 7 and 16 of Directive 2004/38 is becoming problematic for certain categories of EU citizens and linked with the more restrictive position taken by some Member States in relation to accessing their national social assistance systems.

Ms. Wente is referring to two different reports with two different purposes. Both were commissioned by the Ministry as part of the same evaluation. The job of the Queen’s researchers was to identify challenges during the 2010 school year; the first year full day kindergarten was made available. Not surprisingly there were bumps. In repeating the challenges Ms. Wente neglects to mention that the very purpose of the Queen’s report was to identify problems so remedies could be developed. She also fails to note the steps the ministry and school boards have since taken to address them.

In this article, we seek to place the CJEU’s recent case law on social rights for economically inactive EU citizens within the larger political context of the last couple of years that has been characterized by the increased contestation of the type of mobility underpinning EU citizenship. The relationship between EU citizenship and social solidarity – in the form of social rights for mobile EU citizens – has taken centre stage during the Brexit affair. Political debates concerning the free movement of (poor) EU citizens have focused upon the issues of the abuse of free movement rights and welfare tourism, despite a lack of evidence that the two are actually taking place on a large scale within the EU. The now defunct Brexit deal highlights the extension of debates that initially focused on economically inactive EU citizens to EU workers, whose mobility had been considered a positive aspect of EU integration. The scope of social solidarity in the EU is demoted as a result of judicial and political interventions that question the social dimension of EU citizenship and which may have implications for other groups of migrants situated within the EU.

This article examines the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) concerning the social rights of mobile EU citizens from the perspective of European integration theory.Our aim is to situate the effects of EU jurisprudence in 3 Member States -Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK and examine to what extent the selected Member States change their policies on social rights in relation to CJEU jurisprudence.Europeanization through law has been described as one of the most powerful meta-narratives of European integration: the adoption of common laws and standards coupled with the primacy and direct effect of EU law force the Member States to adjust their national policies and legislations in order to comply with EU rules.Europeanization literature has taken a keen interest in legislative acts, and although the importance of CJEU jurisprudence is acknowledged, Europeanization through case law remains a somewhat lesser explored area.The argument put forward in this article is that although EU legislative measures remain an important source of Europeanization of the welfare state, CJEU decisions play an equally important role in clarifying Member State obligations towards economically inactive mobile EU citizens.

Political debates concerning the free movement of (poor) EU citizens (mainly from the newer EU Member States) have focused upon the twin issues of abuse of free movement rights and welfare tourism, despite the lack of meaningful evidence that the two are actually taking place on a wide scale in the EU. This article discusses the increasing political contestation of EU mobility as captured by notions such as, welfare tourism and poverty migration. The analysis of the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union on issues of social rights and EU citizenship shows a noticeable shift towards stricter interpretations of the scope of social solidarity for mobile EU citizens. We argue that the coupling of these two aspects of EU mobility raises questions about the scope of EU citizenship and its nature as a fundamental status.