Free Movement of Persons and European Solidarity Revisited

Abstract

This paper analyses the case-law of the European Court of Justice on the scope and limits of cross-border access of economically inactive Union citizens to national systems of social assistance. The author de-constructs and challenges the weak rhetoric of transnational solidarity generously deployed by the Court of Justice at the beginning of the expansive cycle of its case-law on the transnational social protection rights of mobile EU citizens. The most recent case-law shows, in fact, a spectacular retreat from this rhetoric in tune with the neo-nationalistic and social-chauvinistic moods prevailing in Europe.

Keywords

• European citizenship
• free movement of persons
• cross-border access to national welfare systems
• transnational solidarity