Despite social policy being a member-state competence according to EU Treaty and secondary legislation provisions, case law by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has repeatedly broadened EU citizens’ welfare rights. Particularly during the past fifteen years, this significant extension of cross-border social rights has not only availed mobile workers but specifically non-economically active citizens’ who can now even access non-contributory benefits in other member states. One illustrative example of this development have been mobile students’ cross-border residence and welfare rights: these do not only include students’ ameliorated access to university programmes in other member states but also their eligibility to various types of tuition fee and maintenance coverage either financed by their home or even hosting state. However, it remains still unclear what this extension of cross-border social rights means for welfare states that had traditionally been confined to national borders. Therefore, this paper will principally trace one element of CJEU case law enforcement, that is, legislative implementation. Herein, the analysis will put a particular focus on how the implementation process is politically mobilised through partisan politics and also interest groups. By comparing three different member states – Belgium, Germany, and the UK – and analysing in-depth respective documents as well as semi-structured interviews with roughly fifty experts from the field, this paper will attempt to identify the role of political mobilisation within the implementation process of EU jurisprudence. While the analysis will take case law on student mobility and study finance benefits as an example of non-economically active citizens’ cross-border residence and welfare rights, the paper will also aim at drawing broader conclusions on transnationalisation and judicialisation of European welfare states.
