EU citizenship and social solidarity

Abstract

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.