Free Movement of Workers and Labour Market Integration in the Eu

08

Fall

08

Fall

Free Movement of Workers and Labour Market Integration in the EU

Regional Integration and EU Studies

BSc. in International Business and Politics

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Labor Mobility in the EU: Business and Social Implications 2

Free Movement of Workers: Policy overview 5

Labor Market Integration: A Neofunctionalist Assessment 7

Conclusion 10

Bibliography 11

Introduction

Free movement of workers is one of the four core pieces of the single European market together with free movement of goods, services and capital. Labour market integration, apart of being an important piece of EU’s economic policy also has a social aspect to it. Free movement of workers paves the way for cultural integration by promoting common European identity and a sense of belonging anywhere in the EU despite the nationality, which is achieved by securing equal rights and eliminating any nationality-based discrimination. The integration process has come a long way and free movement today is a universal civil right enshrined in the EU citizenship. The purpose of this paper is thus to develop a theoretical argument that can explain the aforementioned process of integration. The scholarly debate concerning regional integration in Europe provides contradicting views on the matter that are grounded in two prominent theories of neofunctionalism and intergovernmentalism. The following study is an attempt to answer the question on which theory serves best to explain the integration of EU labour markets? The hypothesis that the following research attempts to test is formulated in following statement: the integration of EU labour markets is best explained by the neo-functionalist ‘spillover’ effect. The paper consists of three parts: the first section explains the concept of labor mobility and its economic and social implications. The second part provides an overview of relevant policy regarding free movement of workers. Then, the third section...