Facilitating and Restricting European Social Citizenship at the Domestic Level

This paper explores how migrating EU citizens’ access to social rights is restricted or facilitated within member states. While scholars from different disciplines have taken great interest in the legal developments surrounding EU citizenship and the associated social rights, far less attention has been paid to how the formal social rights of migrating EU citizens translate into access to social benefits and services in practice. The limited research that exists shows that migrating EU citizens face numerous barriers to exercising their social rights. Such barriers, and whether or not member states address them, significantly impact European social citizenship in practice. It is in this implementation process that member states – which have otherwise lost formal control over who has access to their welfare systems and where benefits are consumed – retain scope for discretion and ‘social Europe’ meets its ultimate test.

The paper focuses specifically at the local level, where many welfare responsibilities are located and pressures from intra-EU migration are most strongly felt, building on an in-depth study of four municipalities in Germany and Sweden. Drawing on interviews with key representatives of local government representatives, welfare providers and advocates, these institutions' role in delivering and structuring the social rights of migrating EU citizens is explored. The paper maps barriers and facilitation efforts; considers how these relate to local and national structures; and demonstrates what the governance structures of restriction and facilitation look like. Moreover, it considers how similarities and differences between the municipalities may be understood.