Social dimension of intra-EU mobility: Impact on public services

Freedom of movement across Member States is one of the core values of the European Union and is closely linked to European citizenship. There is, however, a heated debate in many of the host Member States about the impact of the rising inflow of mobile citizens on their public services.

This research project aimed to examine the extent to which mobile citizens from the central and eastern European Member States (the EU10) take up benefits and services in nine host countries. It also provides a demographic and socioeconomic profile of EU10 mobile citizens and identifies initiatives aimed at integrating them in the host countries and providing them with access to benefits and services.

The main finding of the report is that overall take-up of welfare benefits and services by EU10 citizens is lower than that of the native population of the host country, especially social housing and pensions. However, their take-up of certain specific benefits, mainly employment-related benefits (unemployment and in-work benefit), is higher.