Book review: EU citizenship and social rights. Entitlements and impediments to accessing welfare
| Date | 01 March 2019 |
| Published date | 01 March 2019 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1388262719833764 |
| Subject Matter | Book reviews |
compensation from the EU. Finally, it is stated that, if no EU legal construction introducing a new
kind of solidarity can be launched, Member States risk closing themselves off, to the detriment of
themselves, the citizens and the Union.
The book presents an interesting analysis of the issues already well-covered by the literature. It
uses EU primary and secondary rules as well as the case law to make its point about the tension
between the national social security systems and EU rules focused, to a large extent, on free
movement. Inclusion of the relevant legal framework (with special emphasis on the abundance
of case law) and legal literature enables a detailed review of a politically sensitive and complex
issue. When compared to relevant literature (books) on EU social security law, espec ially on
Regulation 883/2004, it should be emphasised that Paju’s work does not provide a detailed over-
view of the relevant rules. Rather, it provides a brief overview of the overarching principles and
focuses on the relevant rulings concerning the relation between the national essence of social
security and the logic of EU law. In this sense, the book is really about EU law but, unlike a lot
of other literature on this subject, it takes into account the effects of EU rules on underlining
principles of national social security systems. It can be concluded that the book should be useful
both for students of advanced courses in European integration and legal scholars.
Author biography
Tomislav Sokol received his LL.B. degree (magna cum laude) from the Faculty of Law,
University of Zagreb in 2006. He finished his LL.M. studies in EU law at KU Leuven Faculty of
Law (magna cum laude) in 2009 and defended his Ph.D. on cross-border health care in the EU at
KU Leuven Faculty of Law in 2014. Currently, he is a member of the Department of Legal
Studies at Zagreb School of Economics and Management, where he teaches several courses,
including one on European Union law. His research interests include EU law, social security law
with a special emphasis on social security coverage of health care, and health law. He is also
Member of the Croatian Parliament.
Pennings, Frans and Seeleib-Kaiser, Martin (eds.), EU citizenship and social rights. Entitlements and
impediments to accessing welfare. Cheltenham, UK / Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar
Publishing, 2018, 265 pages, ISBN: 978-1-78811-270-3 (hardcover).
Reviewed by: Herwig Verschueren, University of Antwerp, Belgium
DOI: 10.1177/1388262719833764
This book is one of a series of books containing the results of a large-scale research project that was
financed by the European Commission and carried out by a consortium of 26 research institutes
from 19 different countries under th e direction of Utrecht University . This multinational and
multidisciplinary project, named bEUcitisen, aimed to identify and analyse the impediments that
keep European citizens from realising their rights as well as the reasons for this. This book presents
the results of that part of the research project that dealt with migrant EU citizens’ access to social
Book reviews 85
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