TY - JOUR
T1 - Lost in Translation
T2 - How Street-Level Bureaucrats Condition Union Solidarity
AU - Thierry, Jessica Maria Sampson
AU - Martinsen, Dorte Sindbjerg
PY - 2018/9/19
Y1 - 2018/9/19
N2 - Translating complex, politicised and ambiguous European legislation and case law into practice is the difficult everyday condition for street-level bureaucrats in European Member States. Yet their crucial role remains remarkably understudied in EU compliance literature. This paper argues that street-level bureaucrats at local implementing levels in Europe are bound to manoeuver between what we define as respectively a European and a national legal logic in the patchwork of EU rules on free movement, equal treatment and cross-border social rights. The two legal logics are strikingly different, yet coexisting. Nonetheless, street-level bureaucrats are left without sufficient guidance in how to prioritise and administer the rules. Consequently, discretion of unclear, core concepts in European social law such as ‘unreasonable burden’, ‘jobseeker’ and ‘worker’ is decentralised, resulting in fragmented outcome on the ground. In the limbo between a European and national logic, Union solidarity, we find, gets lost in translation.
AB - Translating complex, politicised and ambiguous European legislation and case law into practice is the difficult everyday condition for street-level bureaucrats in European Member States. Yet their crucial role remains remarkably understudied in EU compliance literature. This paper argues that street-level bureaucrats at local implementing levels in Europe are bound to manoeuver between what we define as respectively a European and a national legal logic in the patchwork of EU rules on free movement, equal treatment and cross-border social rights. The two legal logics are strikingly different, yet coexisting. Nonetheless, street-level bureaucrats are left without sufficient guidance in how to prioritise and administer the rules. Consequently, discretion of unclear, core concepts in European social law such as ‘unreasonable burden’, ‘jobseeker’ and ‘worker’ is decentralised, resulting in fragmented outcome on the ground. In the limbo between a European and national logic, Union solidarity, we find, gets lost in translation.
KW - Faculty of Social Sciences
KW - Europeanisation
KW - EU implementation
KW - Union Citizenship
KW - street-level bureaucracy
KW - court of justice of the EU
KW - union solidarity
U2 - 10.1080/07036337.2018.1509510
DO - 10.1080/07036337.2018.1509510
M3 - Journal article
SN - 0703-6337
VL - 40
SP - 819
EP - 834
JO - Journal of European Integration
JF - Journal of European Integration
IS - 6
ER -