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much into the potential of free movement and underestimate its limits to
deliver justice. First, the question is how many EU citizens have genuine
access to this right. To give a banal example, it will be a lot easier for a
middle-class educated and employed LGBT individual from Zagreb to
access it than an impoverished lower-class lesbian or gay man from a rural
area in southeast Poland. This is not simply a question of economic means,
which De Witte already indicated, but also of the social and cultural capital
individuals possess according to Pierre Bourdieu.1 Having a right does not
necessarily mean that you have a possibility to access it and that you will
indeed do so. Second, I wonder whether freedom of movement can be the
main instrument for overcoming inequalities and discrimination marginalized minorities face in the EU, if they are not tackled at the state level first.
Is it in fact emancipation and recalibration of justice, when the only option
for an LGBT couple is to ‘flee’ their own country to avoid discrimination?
Saara Koikkalainen investigates the development of EU freedom of
movement from its inception within the European Coal and Steal Community,
where it followed a strictly economic reasoning. It has only later developed
as a fundamental right of all EU citizens. Still this fundamental right is not
without restrictions, which are laid down in Directive 2004/38/EC. Article
14 in the Directive states that EU migrants should not represent ‘an unreasonable burden on a social assistance system of the host Member State’.
Strictly legally speaking, Martijn Van Den Brink is correct, that CJEU case
C-333/13 Elisabeta Dano v Jobcenter Leipzig was in accordance with this
article and did deliver justice. But the question is whether the consequences
of such decision are just. De Witte and Bellamy both claimed the UK-EU
‘emergency brake’ has very little to do with justice but a lot to do with economic reasoning. I would add that it contributed to the prevalent belief that
many EU migrants in the UK are in fact ‘benefit tourists’. This belief goes
beyond mere economic arguments and is based on sometimes latent and
sometimes open xenophobia.
The debates on ‘benefit tourism’ are manifestly closely related to the
question whether socio-economic disparities within the EU should be primarily addressed through freedom of movement. Are the member states
responsible for flattening them or should they be targeted also at the EU
level? Many researchers2 showed how the debate about benefit tourism
1
2
Bourdieu, P. (1984), Distinction. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Parker, O. (2012), ‘Roma And The Politics Of EU Citizenship In France:
Everyday Security And Resistance’, JCMS: Journal of Common Market
Studies 50 (3): 475-491; Sardelic, J. (2017), ‘The Position And Agency Of The
“Irregularized”: Romani Migrants As European Semi-Citizens’, Politics 37 (3):
332-346.
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