Administering the Union citizen in need: Between welfare state bureaucracy and migration control

How to determine whether mobile Union citizens have a right to social assistance? Research has shown how Western European Member States have made efforts to restrict Union citizens' access to their welfare systems over the past decade, whereby lawful residence has increasingly become the linchpin for entitlement. Member States have responded strikingly differently, however, to the complex administrative puzzle of dealing with open borders, the ability to verify lawful residence and the right to social assistance over time. This article makes an analytical and empirical contribution to existing literature by asking how Member States adjust their welfare/migration administrations to fit the Union's free movement regime and what implications this has for Union citizens. Based upon comparative case studies into the administration of social assistance rights in Germany, Austria and the Netherlands, the article develops a typology of three different models of administering Union citizens' access to the welfare state: the form, signal and delegation models. Demonstrating how bureaucratic design impacts the stratification of social rights in the Member States in different ways, the article concludes that studying alternative administrative models offers important insights into the functioning of territorial welfare states in open border regimes.

The Effect of EU Integration on Health Care in Central and Eastern Europe

The effect of EU policy and its legal framework on health care in CEE member states has been complex. In relation to health care access and financial sustainability, it has been detrimental in certain parts of CEE. This has primarily been the result of economic/fiscal governance instruments of the EU and free-movement rules facilitating outflows of health care professionals. Although there has been a general improvement in access to health care since accession to the EU, the instruments the EU has used to handle the economic crisis have somewhat offset this improvement. Additionally, outflow of health care professionals has resulted in retention strategies such as salary increases and investments in medical infrastructure in some CEE member states, increasing the standard of health care. Still, differences between East and West in terms of important health indicators continue to exist, and EU instruments aimed at compensating this generally lack power to provide meaningful solutions. It seems more solidarity between member states is the only way to increase legitimacy of the European integration in CEE member states and thus prevent them from feeling as outsiders within the EU. Without such a development, CEE countries will continue to lag behind other parts of the Union.

The European Union: open to the practising physician?

The European Union (EU) has powers and responsibilities in the area of public health, while the organisation of healthcare facilities remains the concern of member states. However, a series of directives has, since the late 1970s, sought to ensure the right of individual practitioners to travel freely throughout the EU, both to obtain specialist training and to practise in all member states on the same basis as doctors working in the member states where they were first registered. More recently, there has been mutual recognition of completion of specialist training across the EU. A new directive concerning the mobility of medical practitioners across the EU is under discussion.