Rendez-Vous sur l'Oder: PD Dr Nikola Tietze on the sociological analysis of the ECJ's case law on access to social rights

" Quand des citoyennes européennes deviennent une 'charge'... Le conflit autour de l'aide sociale pour des travailleurs migrants à la Cour de Justice de l'Union Européenne (1998-2015)"

["When European citizens become a "burden" ... The conflict over social assistance for migrant workers at the Court of Justice of the European Union (1998-2015)"].

The intervention focuses on documents relating to three judgments of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU): Martínez Sala v Freistaat Bayern (1998), Elisabeta and Florin Dano v Jobcenter Leipzig (2014) and Nazifa Alimanovic and her children v Jobcenter Neukölln (2015). These judgements concern three European citizens who applied for social welfare benefits in Germany. The governments of the Member States, the Commission, the Advocates General and the judges of the ECJ are debating the implementation of non-discrimination in the field of social protection in the three cases. The intervention is based on the analysis of these debates in order to show both the elastic nature of the articulation of European citizenship with social citizenship and its historicity. While this elastic nature refers to the dynamic definitions of 'worker' status and access to social rights in the European Union, historicity refers both to the balance of power between the Commission, the ECJ and the Member States and to the political and economic issues at the time of the judgement.

Nikola Tietze is a sociologist at the Centre Marc Bloch (Berlin) and an associate researcher at the Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Economic Sociology (Cnam, Paris). Together with Olivier Giraud and Monika Eigmüller, she coordinates the ANR-DFG project "Access to social rights in France and Germany: inequalities and discrimination, gender and migration on a European scale".

Here you can find the recording in the media portal.