ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the problem of the determination of social rights in the European Union (EU). It considers the extent to which social rights transcend national borders and are detached from national citizenship. The chapter compares the experience of EU citizens and non-EU citizens at both the national and EU levels through the study of political and institutional impediments to the expansion of social rights for non-EU citizens at the supra-national level. Nationality is the critical determinant concerning access to social rights in the EU, but the extension of supra-national rights in the EU remains for the most part limited only to EU-citizens, thereby often denying access to social rights to most third country nationals residing legally in EU member-states. The chapter illustrates the manner in which citizenship's means at the supra-national level have been re-prioritised from political to social rights. Any discourse about citizens and non-citizens concerns social rights.
