Since the beginning of the Eurozone crisis, the dramatic rise of unemployment across the EU has intensified some long-standing issues with the European labour market. Increasing proportions of workers are finding themselves with insufficient employment protection or are forced to take agency work, short-term contracts or atypical work. Furthermore, the rise in unemployment has also resulted in tensions regarding the free movement of workers with increasing opposition in the member states to intra EU migration. In short, employment protection legislation and employment practices across the EU have come under severe strain and the EU has struggled to respond to this development. Against this background lies the criticism that the EU only protects workers and their free movement, rather than a broader protection of EU citizenship. The papers presented in this panel analyse the recent trends and the long-term consequences of this fallout within the European labour market. They focus on developments within the EU’s labour market since the beginnings of the Eurozone crisis and the associated problems of constructing an EU citizenship around workers, rather than all citizens.