“EU migrants should not be entitled to access national welfare systems for first three years”

The FINANCIAL — National governments should be able to limit EU migrants’ access to out-of-work and in-work benefits, social housing and publicly funded apprenticeships until after three years argues a pamphlet co-authored by LSE Professor of European Law, Damian Chalmers.

The pamphlet, published by the think tank Open Europe, argues that this could be achieved without a complicated EU Treaty change but by amending existing EU law, according to LSE.

This will remove an effective “subsidy” to EU workers to perform low-paid jobs in the UK and create a fairer system, which could have an impact on numbers and boost public confidence in free movement.

Also, unlike ideas for quotas or caps on EU migrants, it leaves the basic principle of free movement of workers – which has been an overall benefit to the UK – intact, while not requiring a complicated EU treaty change. Because of this, the proposal could win support in other capitals, including, importantly, Berlin.

Current EU rules impede national governments who want to have active employment policies where it ‘always pays to work’. National subsidies or benefits to facilitate domestic employment – such as the UK Government’s tax credits – can end up going to EU migrants and effectively subsidising low-paid or low-skilled migration.

The Professor Chalmers and his co-author, Open Europe Research Director Stephen Booth, propose a new Citizenship and Integration Directive that would set out a new test for EU migrants’ integration in their host society – benefits would only be paid where the EU migrant has lawfully resided in their new country for three years. EU citizens would have a right to access public healthcare within their host country, but, for the first three years, the costs would be borne by their state of nationality and, insofar as there was a shortfall, through private health insurance that they were required to purchase. Children of an EU citizen would have a right to access childcare and primary and secondary education, according to LSE.