Re-shaping the paradigm of social solidarity in the EU: on the UK’s welfare reforms and pre- and post-EU referendum developments

The sense of social solidarity formed at Union level is manifested, broadly speaking, in the very interchangeability of national solidaristic communities in the Union that allows Union citizens to be affiliated with the one of their residence. Initially widely defined in light of Union citizenship, the prospect of such interchangeability has been narrowed down in a trilogy of the Court's recent rulings. With the primacy afforded to the black-letter provisions of Union secondary law without the need for further proportionality assessment, the interchangeability of national solidaristic communities seems to be confined to the extent of an economic contribution in a host Member State. The actual parameters of this factor as a criterion setting the threshold of membership in a national solidaristic community are, in turn, being defined by Member States themselves, often resorting to the narrow and exclusionary interpretation of Union citizens' rights. The welfare reforms introduced in the UK in the period leading up to the EU referendum vote, for instance, have re-shaped the extent of Union workers' and job-seekers' rights by re-balancing them around the factor of economic contribution and specifically targeting those who are not deemed to actually contribute in the UK. As a result, fixing the threshold of membership in a national solidaristic community in this manner, both at Union and national levels, has created much uncertainty about the fate of Union citizenship and Union citizens' rights derived from the Treaty