Social citizenship in federations: free movement and social assistance rights in the EU and beyond

Abstract

When and how have free movement and social citizenship been reconciled in federal settings characterised by devolved welfare responsibilities and extensive internal diversity? The EU fails to guarantee minimum social protection rights for EU citizens migrating within the Union, as access to social assistance in countries of destination is highly conditional. This situation is very similar to historical experiences in other federations, where fears of welfare migration and tensions between federal and sub-federal competencies made it difficult to guarantee social assistance rights for all citizens. A comparison of the North German Confederation, Switzerland and the USA, demonstrates that such rights nonetheless have been extended to all citizens in federations and that this occurred along two pathways: (a) a judicial pathway through the intervention of a constitutional court; or (b) a political pathway through incremental change. The conclusion considers possible implications of these findings for the EU.

Keywords:

• Free movement
• internal migration
• federations
• EU
• social citizenship

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Thomas Bahle, Rebecca Ehata, Joseph Hien, Moritz Kaiser, Willem Maas, Traute Meyer, Florian Tennstedt, Herwig Verschueren, André Walter, Patrick Emmenegger, Thore Menze and Edward Mohr for valuable comments and suggestions. Martin Seeleib-Kaiser is indebted to the WZB Berlin Social Science Centre and the Institute of Political Science at Tübingen University for providing him excellent academic environments to work on the paper in 2016/2017 and during his sabbatical in Spring/Summer of 2018.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 For a critical assessment see Peña-Casas Ghailani (2013).

2 Though their right to reside is subjected to certain conditions, as laid down in the Citizenship Directive (2004/38/EC).

3 The selected cases have ‘high’ numbers of sub-federal states compared with other Western federal states: Australia 6 states and 2 territories; Austria 9 Länder; Belgium 3 regions; Canada 10 provinces and 3 territories; Germany 16 Länder.

4 One indicator of economic diversity and unequal development are the number of workers employed in industry and services versus those employed in agriculture: e.g. in the state of Bremen 77 percent of workers were employed in the industrial and services sectors, whereas in the state of Mecklenburg only 26 per cent were employed in these sectors (data for 1871, Kaiserlich Statistisches Amt 1880: 15).

5 Amongst them Bern, Basel City, Geneva and Zurich.

6 Basel City, Geneva, Zurich, Vaud and Neuchâtel (Bundesversammlung 2012, 7744).

7 For an overview of the Courts’ ‘citizenship’ rulings, see e.g. De Witte (2015).

8 Recent Court rulings limiting economically inactive EU migrant citizens’ access to minimum subsistence benefits are the Brey (C-140/12), Dano (C-333/13) and Alimanovic (C-67/14) cases; cf. Van der Mei (2016) and Verschueren (2017).

9 F.n. 7.

10 Notably, a scientific committee of the German Ministry of Finance proposed in 2001 that social assistance be made portable between Member States until the EU citizen acquires residence in the new Member State in order to end discrimination of economically inactive citizens (BFM, 2001).

11 An amendment of the citizenship directive would require a Qualified Majority Vote in the Council: 55 percent of Member States, representing 65 percent of the population.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by a research grant from the Fördernetzwerk Interdisziplinäre Sozialpolitikforschung/German Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, and the University of Oxford through the Higher Studies Fund.

Notes on contributors

Cecilia Bruzelius

Cecilia Bruzelius is Junior Professor of European Public Policy, Eberhard Karls University Tübingen. Her research focusses on social policy, migration and the EU and has appeared in the Journal of European Public Policy, Journal of European Social Policy, Journal of Common Market Studies and Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, amongst others. ([email protected])

Martin Seeleib-Kaiser

Martin Seeleib-Kaiser is Professor of Comparative Public Policy, Eberhard Karls University Tübingen. His research focusses on comparative social policy and social rights of EU migrant citizens and has appeared in the American Sociological Review, Journal of European Social Policy, Comparative Political Studies and Social Policy and Administration, amongst others. ([email protected])