Towards the Earning of Social Citizenship in the EU: On the Relationship between the ECJ’s Case Law and the Access to Social Assistance in the Netherlands

In an attempt to bridge the gap between studies of European judicial policy-making and national welfare state transformation, this paper explores a parallel and mutually reinforcing trend visible at both the level of ECJ jurisprudence and domestic policies. It argues that in a bid to reconcile the inherent tension between the freedom of movement and nationally bounded welfare systems, the case law of the European Court of Justice reflects a model of earned social citizenship. Earned citizenship, defined as a governmental practice which requires individuals to ‘earn’ their (social) citizenship and access to the welfare system through an emphasis on their individual responsibility to fulfil the economic and cultural conditions of membership, has been visible since the Court’s early citizenship jurisprudence, but has become even more explicit in its recent case law. A case study of social assistance policies in the Netherlands shows that a restrictive political attitude towards migrant welfare may push national authorities to engage in a process of defensive compliance; although national responses to ECJ case law may be designed to avoid its potential consequences, they actually form national manifestations of the underlying model. The Dutch case shows however, that legal and administrative complexities can impede the effective implementation of a strict version of earned citizenship at the migrant level, leading national policy-makers to resort to increasing conditionality at the benefit level and thereby change the very character of national social assistance arrangements. Upon passing the proportionality test of the Court, such national manifestations of earned citizenship might reinforce the emergence of this model at the European level.