A policy of inconsistency and hypocrisy: United Kingdom social security policy and European citizenship

Abstract

The expansion of the European Union in April 2004 to include eight Eastern European nations formerly under Soviet control, and a further expansion in January 2007 to include Romania and Bulgaria, has led to a vast influx of workers and work‐seekers from this region into the United Kingdom. Despite allowing the vast majority of these work‐seekers access to the UK labour market, Government policy on allowing these EU citizens entitlement to the full range of income‐based social security benefits remains somewhat confusing. It may also be in contravention of recent EU legislative measures on the issue of European Citizenship, not to mention the concept of Community citizenship itself. The aim of this article is to examine the relevant UK social security legislation and to ascertain the true nature of its relationship with the developing concept of European citizenship.

Keywords:

• EU Workers
• free movement
• discrimination
• A10 migrants
• the United Kingdom
• social security benefits
• entitlement
• hardship

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Professor Nick Wikeley, from the School of Law at the University of Southampton, and Mel Cousins, from Oxford Brookes University, for their invaluable comments on previous drafts of this paper.