Policy Brief - Limited social rights and the case for a European minimum income scheme

This policy brief examines the current status of social rights in the European Union and makes the case for a European Minimum Income Scheme. Since the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty (1992), European Union citizenship has formally become a reality and citizens of European Union member states are no longer only citizens of the respective member states, but also ‘multinational citizens’ of the European Union. According to Dahrendorf, “[c]itizenship is … an idea that finds its expression in law … Citizenship creates a Rechtsgemeinschaft, a community under law…”. Substantive social rights have in turn been characterised as crucial for the ability of all citizens, irrespective of class, to participate more fully in the Rechtsgemeinschaft and to enjoy their political and civil rights. In this view, social rights are a precondition to full citizenship, or the “the final stone in the arch which holds up the roof of citizenship”. Social rights are typically realised and conceptualised within the context of nation states. Therefore, it is also not surprising that the concept of social rights does not have a uniform meaning across European Union member states. Moreover, definitions of social rights and social citizenship vary with the institutional design of social policy systems at the nation-state level, which may be built on the principle of universalism, on promoting social stability, or mitigating poverty and lead to very different outcomes. Within the European Union, we are witnesses of very large differences in the level of inequality and poverty among member states, which is not related to the level of economic development, but largely a consequence of political choice