When European Citizens Become a "Burden" ... Negotiations on Social Rights at the Court of Justice of the European Union (1998-2015)

Abstract

The article looks at the relationship between social rights and labour mobility under the European Union citizenship regime. It asks what concept of social citizenship is associated with European freedom of movement and how this relationship has evolved during the 2000s and 2010s. To answer these questions, documents related to three judgments of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) were scrutinized. After their contextualisation in regard to ECJ case law, the three judgments are presented from a sociological point of view and on the backdrop of social policy transformations in the EU member states. Part 3 considers the arguments in regard to the determination of worker status, the scope of the non-discrimination principle, and the social entitlements that plaintiffs were granted or denied. The article concludes that the actors at the ECJ (judges, advocates general, and representatives of the Commission and of member states' governments) first asserted a social citizenship approach to labour mobility and subsequently dismantled it. The overall process revealed that intra-European migrant workers' social citizenship was considered in a fragmented and at the same time flexible manner that can be adjusted to fit changing labour market policies and economic objectives.