The Europeanisation of deservingness? Attitudes on immigrants access to welfare before and after Maastricht and the refugee crisis

Have attitudes towards welfare deservingness changed over time across the EU? This article investigates aggregate and individual-level preferences towards welfare exclusionary policies, by evaluating antecedents of welfare deservingness in different contexts: in 1992, before the signing of the Maastricht Treaty, and in 2016, in the aftermath of the great recession, of the Eurozone and Schengen crises, and the Brexit referendum. Based on Eurobarometer and the ‘Reconciling Economic and Social Europe’ (REScEU) survey data collected in five EU countries, the article shows that unconditional transnational solidarity was weaker in 2016 compared to 1992. Contrary to expectations, cross-border welfare rights were already politicised in most countries prior to the Maastricht Treaty. Findings suggest that EU identity could have become the main criterion to define who deserves to have access to social security benefits, and in this sense, it is proposed that deservingness may have become ‘Europeanised’.