The indifferent homeland? EU Member States’ engagement with the social protection of their nationals abroad via Bilateral Social Security Agreements

This thesis aims to answer a two-fold research question, whether EU Member States are concerned about the formal social protection of their nationals residing in NESS countries (i.e. No EU Social Security), and under what circumstances do the EU home countries engage in the formal social protection of their nationals abroad. 

To do so, drawing on the concept of social citizenship and combining it with the one on external citizenship, this project sets to identify EU nationals as a group of citizens whose (social) rights, when moving abroad, are governed and administered from the homeland. For this project, formal social protection is understood as the bundle of policies that a state offers to both alleviate and prevent the risks that put people’s livelihoods in danger. This project approaches social protection via Bilateral Social Security Agreements (BSSAs) and employs the theoretical framework of diaspora engagement to trace and examine the motivations of EU sending countries to sign BSSAs.

To answer this research question, the project adopts a mixed methods approach by quantitatively analysing a large N-dataset and combining it with a series of qualitative interviews with policymakers responsible for BSSAs. 

The main findings of this project highlight that EU Member States are concerned about the social protection of their nationals settled in NESS countries, as they have agreements in place with 83.9% of the countries where their nationals settle. Also, the project reveals that, although the sending countries do not have a uniform set of motivations to sign BSSAs, economic and demographic considerations play a key role in the decision-making behind the signature of BSSAs.