My paper deals with how the right to free movement is approached in different EU countries (UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Romania). The politicians whose statements are taken into account include heads of states and ministers of the interior from 2004 to 2014. The paper draws from my PhD dissertation in which I constructed an analytical framework for analysing the attitudes based on prominent moral theories. The paper will also discuss the benefit of such an approach and its applicability to different aspects of international relations. I argue that there is no common understanding of the relationship between e.g. security and free movement, or of what issues should remain under the national discretion. For example, politicians in France and Spain have demanded a common immigration policy to be implemented in the EU, but even these two countries approach both intra-EU and third-country migration very differently, especially as regards the social security of migrants. Moreover, the social security of EU migrants is an even more controversial issue in the UK, constituting the core in the renegotiation of Britain’s EU membership. Then again, in Romania, politicians fear that more and more qualified people leave the country after the transitional restrictions for Romanian workers ended (in January 2014). Therefore, the aim of this paper is to illustrate the practical reality of the state-centred political system where the common assumption is that citizens of a specific state are more entitled to domestic distributive justice than others. The current migration crisis in the European area adds to the discussion, as migrants surpassing the external borders of the Union raise questions of the moral responsibilities of states; do states have a right to decide who may settle in the territory? When, if ever, is it justifiable to limit moral concerns around a single political system?
