Social Security Regulation in the EU: The De-Territorialisation of Welfare

Abstract

Although the European Union (EU) has not formally been assigned welfare policy competence, it has for decades regulated social benefits between the Member States. The social rights and obligations of the European migrant have for long been safeguarded by the EU, and the mutual responsibility for welfare undertaken by the Member States of the Union constitutes an extraordinary piece of ‘Social Europe’. This chapter examines the integration of national social security schemes that has taken place in the European Union through Community Regulation 1408/71, which has recently been substantially reformed with the adoption of Regulation 883/2004. The chapter seeks to demonstrate that a dimension of European social security has for long been a material fact, patched up by judicial activism and political compromises. A more general description will be drawn of how intra-European welfare has been extended to all citizens of the Union in parallel with the extension of the free movement principle to persons. The focus of the chapter is, however, on the question of exportable welfare between Member States; it describes how the tension between the Community principle of exportability and national principles of territoriality has over time intensified, been reconciled, and reappeared.