Court Rules that EU Member Countries can Limit Welfare Benefits to Immigrants

Countries in the European Union can limit access to welfare benefits for citizens from poorer countries in the 28-nation bloc, Europe’s top court ruled Tuesday.

The European Court of Justice ruled that a Romanian woman who migrated to Germany was not entitled to unemployment benefits because she had made no effort to find a job. The woman had sued a German employment center in Leipzig for refusing to grant unemployment benefits for her and her son. 

The decision is limited in scope, but is likely to be seized on by leaders in Britain and Germany seeking to tamp down populist furor fed by the belief that poorer Europeans are moving to richer countries to tap into their generous welfare systems. Soon after the ruling, Prime Minister David Cameron wrote on Twitter that it curbed “benefit tourism” and was “simple common sense.”

There are no statistics to size up “welfare tourism,” nor any figures that suggest it has seriously drained public coffers in European states. But in Britain, particularly, popular anger over immigration is thought to have bolstered support for the UK Independence Party, which is posing a right-wing challenge to Cameron and his Conservative Party in elections next May. 

Advisers to Cameron have even floated proposals about capping the movement of immigrants from poorer EU states to Britain. EU officials and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany have warned against such a move, noting that it would contravene the principle of free movement, which she has said is not negotiable. At a conference of Britain’s biggest business lobby Monday, some prominent business leaders also argued strongly for free movement within the union.

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