P.E. Minderhoud

Asylum seekers and access to social security. Recent developments in The Netherlands, United Kingdom, Germany and Belgium

The regulation of migration, especially of asylum seekers, has become high on the political and policy agenda of Western European countries in recent years. There are many reasons for this which include: the expansion of migration flows initiated by several social, economic and political events; the problems of unemployment and the limited capacity of the various labour markets to absorb immigrants; the issue of inclusion and exclusion of social services in a period which has seen the curtailment of the welfare state and increasing feelings of nationalism and expressions of xenophobia. As a result, the national migration policies in Western Europe have become increasingly restrictive over the last few years (Engbersen et al., 1995: 14). Except for the period just before and after World War II, the legislative activity on immigration has not been so intense in Western Europe as it was in the early 1990s. Never has there been such a consistent approach to revising the regulations and never before have the restrictions been so severe (Marie, 1995: 51).

The "Other" EU Security. Social Protection

This paper focuses on the issue of social security in the EU as a different kind of security. It addresses four topics: the reluctance of the Member States to give up their legislative power to harmonise their social security systems within the European Union; the use of social security as a means of excluding unwanted immigrants; the social security protection of TCNs in EU legislation; and the possibilities of Article 14 European Convention of Human Rights, which prohibits discrimination, securing the entitlement to social security rights of TCNs. It concludes that the states duty to provide security is no longer an exclusive privilege for own citizens and that the changing legal framework of citizenship in the European Union, the European Convention of Human Rights and the acquisition of EU residence rights by TCNs all challenge the sovereignty argument used by the individual states.

Social Security Rights under Decision No 3/80 of the EEC-Turkey Association Council. Developments in the EU and in the Netherlands

This article deals with the recent developments of Decision No 3/80 of the EEC-Turkey Association Council in the EU and in the Netherlands. Decision No 3/80 established social security measures for workers of Turkish nationality moving within the Community (now Union) and members of their family living with them. Decision No 3/80 has mainly had an impact in two Member States: the Netherlands and Germany. In this article I will limit myself to the Netherlands, where the social security system has become much more territorially-based since the year 2000. The importance attached to residence in the design of the Dutch social security system showcases the revitalisation of nationstate approaches to the delivery of welfare at a time when EU rules are interfering more and more in the everyday life of EU citizens. The second part of this article analyses the discussion raised by the Akdas judgment of the EC], which gave Turkish nationals more rights than EU nationals, and the Demirci judgment, which reversed this advantage for Turkish workers with dual nationality. It also deals with the 2012 initiative of the European Union in replacing Decision No 3/80 by a new Association Council Decision and the legal and political challenges of this new initiative.

Directive 2004/38 and Access to Social Assistance Benefits

This chapter focuses on the issues which have been raised regarding the implementation of Directive 2004/38 in the light of access to social assistance benefits for European Union (EU) citizens in other Member States. This Directive regulates the entry and residence of EU citizens and their family members in another Member State. Directive 2004/38 makes a distinction between residence up to three months, residence from three months to five years and residence for longer than five years. In many Member States the transposition of Directive 2004/38 was used as an occasion to introduce clauses in their social law explicitly excluding EU nationals and their family members. The chapter concludes that there is a right of residence under EU law, for inactive EU citizens without a permanent residence status even if they apply for social assistance benefits. Keywords: Directive 2004/38; EU law; European Union (EU) citizens; Member States; social assistance benefits

EU citizenship and social solidarity

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.

Migration on the Move

Migration on the Move offers a critical review of the profound transformations that have taken place in the field of migration and asylum laws and policies in the past 20 years, and their implications for the refugee and migration issues faced by EU states.