Free Movement and Boundaries of Welfare in the European Union

Abstract

　While free movement of EU citizens has been the primary cornerstone of the European integration project, recent multiple crises seem to cause some challenges to the principle of free movement in the European Union. This article analyzes the politicization of free movement in the EU, especially its politicization in relation to the national welfare state.

　It has long been recognized that there can potentially be tension between intra-EU free movement and national welfare states. According to Ferrera, it can be understood as the tension between the logic of 'closure' and the logic of 'opening'. On the one hand, historical nation state building has accompanied boundary buildings among European states based on the logic of 'closure'. On the other hand, the European integration that transcends such national boundaries may be conceptualized as processes of boundary 'opening'. From this perspective, the relationship between free movement of persons and national welfare state corresponds to the one between the logic of 'opening' and the logic of 'closure'. This potential tension between welfare states and free movement has increasingly been visible since the eastern enlargement, and the politicization of free movement became highly salient in the EU in 2010s. The extent of politicization, for instance, can be seen in the letter to the EU in 2013 from the interior ministers of four member states including Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom publicly expressed its concern for 'benefit tourism'.

　This article examines the process of politicization of free movement in the EU, and how the EU and the member states respond to it. For the purpose, it firstly analyzes the jurisprudence of the CJEU on the Union citizenship, and secondly, the policy responses and party politics in two member states-Germany and the United Kingdom-are analyzed. Through these analyses, it intends to uncover how these two logics of 'closure' and 'opening' are negotiated and coordinated between two levels, namely, the EU and the member states.