TY  - JOUR
A1  - Efthymiou, Dimitrios E.
T1  - EU citizens’ access to welfare rights: how (not) to think about unreasonable burdens?
T2  - Res publica
N2  - Defenders of current restrictions on EU immigrants’ access to welfare rights in host member states often invoke a principle of reciprocity among member states to justify these policies. The argument is that membership of a system of social cooperation triggers duties of reciprocity characteristic of welfare rights. Newly arriving EU immigrants who look for work do not meet the relevant criteria of membership, the argument goes, because they have not yet contributed enough to qualify as members on the grounds of reciprocity. Therefore, current restrictions on their access to welfare rights are justified. In this article, I challenge this argument by showing how restrictions on EU immigrants’ access to welfare rights are inconsistent with duties of international reciprocity. There are different variations of this challenge, but my focus here will be on one that uses a veil of ignorance device to support this claim. What matters from a perspective concerned with international reciprocity, I will argue, is what kind of welfare policy EU member states would choose were they not to know whether those receiving EU migrants were net contributors or net beneficiaries to the relevant scheme of international cooperation made possible by the four freedoms, and freedom of movement in particular. I argue that framing the requirement of reciprocity in this way provides a more comprehensive understanding of what should count as an ‘unreasonable burden’ on the welfare systems of host member states. The paper also examines alternative accounts of ‘unreasonable burdens’. It shows when and how the current institutional structure of the EU could take steps to deal with such burdens by preventing member states from gaming a comprehensive system of welfare rights protections across member states and by recognising the achievements of those member states that best serve them.
KW  - European Union
KW  - Migration
KW  - Welfare state
KW  - Social justice
KW  - Unreasonable burden
KW  - Reciprocity
Y1  - 2022
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/69568
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-695689
SN  - 1572-8692
N1  - Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. The research carried out in this article has been supported by founding provided by German Research Society (DFG).
VL  - 28
IS  - 4
SP  - 613
EP  - 633
PB  - HeinOnline ; Springer Science + Business Media B.V
CY  - Getzville, NY ; Dordrecht [u.a.]
ER  -