Rebalancing the Enlarged Single Market

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Susanne K. Schmidt
• Subject Area: Political Science
• Term: from 2019 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 412341949

• Final Report Year: 2023

Final Report Abstract

The overall goal of the project – being a collaboration between researchers of the Universities of Salzburg and Bremen under the joint funding of DFG and FWF – was to answer the question how economic freedoms and social protection are balanced in the EU’s single market since its Eastern enlargement in 2004. It did so in a comprehensive and at the same time focused way: (i) comprehensive, as it not only considered (member states’ transposition of) EU legislation, but also the jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice (ECJ), and member states’ administrative practice – and their interactions. The project was (ii) focused, as it concentrated on three particular kinds of labour mobility with a record of precarious working conditions: atypical employment, solo self‐employment, and posted work. Germany, Austria, Poland and Slovenia were studied. Due to Covid, it proved unfeasible to study France as well. The project contributes to the research fields of EU integration, Europeanization and labour mobility – especially workers’ transnational labour and social rights – within the European Union. Moreover, the different publications of the projects speak to further strands of research, for instance public administration, political economy or welfare chauvinism. As to the interplay of ECJ jurisprudence and EU legislation, the project confirmed our expectation that EU legislative rebalancing between EU economic freedoms and social protection is partly promoted, but also severely constrained by the Court’s interpretation of EU Treaty law. The overall finding is that while both EU legislation and ECJ jurisprudence try to better (re)balance social and economic aims, economic aims often take precedence over social aims in practice. The project confirms the structural disadvantage of transnational labour, compared to transnational capital. While member states have room for manoeuvre to curb this disadvantage and close loopholes that companies may use to exploit workers, as the recent German reform in the meat sector demonstrates – the conditions for such reforms are very demanding. In particular, EU social and labour rules are highly complex and even more so is their (transnational) enforcement in cross-border contexts. Especially the isolated nature of migrants’ work and related lack of capacities of enforcement actors (both trade unions and control authorities) lead to the fact that workers’ rights are often not enforced. Moreover, the project found that workers do not only face difficulties related to precarious and exploitative work, but also related to, e.g., welfare benefits. The project hence points to the need for further research on the multi-precariousness of mobile workers.

Publications

• A hidden champion? The European Court of Justice as an agenda‐setter in the case of posted workers. Public Administration, 99(2), 321-334.
  Lubow, Alexis & Schmidt, Susanne K.
  
• Free movement of workers under challenge: the indexation of family benefits. Comparative European Politics, 18(6), 925-943.
  Blauberger, Michael; Heindlmaier, Anita & Kobler, Carina
  
• Kommentar über das EZB-Urteil. Von Schlachthöfen und Verfassungsgerichten. Weser Kurier. 31.05.2020.
  Schmidt, Susanne K.
  
• Administering the Union citizen in need: Between welfare state bureaucracy and migration control. Journal of European Social Policy, 31(4), 380-394.
  Kramer, Dion & Heindlmaier, Anita
  
• Social Europe? Why EU Migrants Are Denied Social Assistance Benefits at the Street Level“. The JCMS Blog.
  Heindlmaier, Anita
  
• The differentiated politicization of free movement of people in the EU. A topic model analysis of press coverage in Austria, Germany, Poland and the UK. Journal of European Public Policy, 30(2), 291-314.
  Blauberger, Michael; Heindlmaier, Anita; Hofmarcher, Paul; Assmus, Josephine & Mitter, Birgit
  
• Essential, lonely and exploited: why mobile EU workers’ labour rights are not enforced. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 49(15), 3689-3708.
  Heindlmaier, Anita & Kobler, Carina
  
• EU free movement of people: fully recovered or suffering from long COVID?. Journal of European Public Policy, 30(4), 696-720.
  Blauberger, Michael; Grabbe, Christina & Ripoll, Servent Ariadna
  
• Negative Integration Is What States Make of It? Tackling Labour Exploitation in the German Meat Sector. JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies, 61(4), 917-934.
  Blauberger, Michael & Schmidt, Susanne K.
  
• Transnational labour and social rights. Social Europe. 08.04.2022.
  Schmidt, Susanne K. & Wixforth, Susanne
  
• Welfare Mediators as Game Changers? Deconstructing Power Asymmetries Between EU Migrants and Welfare Administrators. Social Inclusion, 9(4).
  Ratzmann, Nora & Heindlmaier, Anita
  
• Wird Europa sozialer? A&W blog. 04.05.2022.
  Schmidt, Susanne K. & Wixforth, Susanne
  
• “The Court of Justice of the European Union and the Mega-Politics of Posted Workers”. Law and Contemporary Problems 84(4): 29-57.
  Martinsen, Dorte & Blauberger, Michael
  
• German capitalism and migrant work in meat. How COVID allowed to break the path-dependent labour exploitation. Culture, Practice & Europeanization, 8(1), 50-73.
  Schmidt, Susanne K. & Blauberger, Michael
  
• Running low on state-capacity: strengthening EU mobile workers’ rights by outsourcing enforcement? The role of advisory services in Germany. Culture, Practice & Europeanization, 8(1), 26-49.
  Assmus, Josephine
  
• The European Labour Authority in Practice. WSI-Study No. 32e.
  Blauberger, Michael & Heindlmaier, Anita
  
• Trügerisches soziales Europa. WSI-Mitteilungen, 76(6), 424-433.
  ASSMUS, JOSEPHINE; HEINDLMAIER, ANITA & SCHMIDT, SUSANNE K.