One of the freedoms enjoyed by European Union (EU) citizens is the freedom of movement for workers within the EU (since 2011). This includes the rights of movement and residence for workers, the right to work in another Member State and be treated on an equal footing with nationals of that Member State. EU Mobile Citizens (EUMCs) are often not treated on an equal footing. In the Netherlands, the struggle to register and house EUMCs has been continuous since the start of the enlargement of the EU with the EU-11 in 2004. For this study student-led research was used to look at registration and housing policies in three countries, Sweden, Spain, and Germany to look for good practices applicable in the Dutch context. Students interviewed a municipal worker and a business representative (employer of EUMCs) in seven selected municipalities. The findings from this exploration highlight the complexity of addressing the needs of EU Mobile Citizens within local governance structures. Across the case studies, three critical themes emerged that shaped the dynamics of registration and housing for EUMCs: the capacity of local governments, the roles of employers, and the influence of national-level policies.
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Het Sint Pietersplein loopt over, de straten in Rome zijn niet langer begaanbaar, alle accommodaties in de wijde omtrek zijn volgeboekt, de hele wereld is vertegenwoordigd bij de uitvaartmis van de op 2 april 2005 gestorven paus Johannes Paulus II, die jong en oud, regeringsleiders en jan-van-de-straat weet te treffen. Een paus die de mogelijkheid van wereldeenheid zichtbaar maakt. Wat vindt deze Paus van de Europese Unie? Welke effecten heeft hij gehad op Europa? Allereerst iets over zijn persoon en zijn visie op mens en wereld.
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In 2004 the report Intellectual capital of the European Union was published (Andriessen and Stam, 2004). This report provided insight in the value of the intellectual capital of the 15 countries of the European Union, in relationship to the goals set by the European Council in March 2000. Since this report, the EU grew from 15 to 27 countries and the Lisbon goals were reformulated in 2005. The aim of this paper is to repeat the measurement of the intellectual capital (IC) of the enlarged European Union (EU) in relationship to the new Lisbon goals. In order to become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy, the EU decided to focus on “delivering stronger, lasting growth and creating more and better jobs” (CEC, 2005d, p.7). In this paper we translate this overall goal in 38 indicators. As the data was not available for all the new member states, we decided to limit our paper to the so-called EU-19. Based on our measurements we conclude that the EU-19 is still behind Japan and far behind the USA, however the EU is catching up as both Japan and the USA have considerably lower growth figures than the EU-19. From an IC perspective, the EU is geographically divided. The Nordic countries are still the best performing countries. The southern European countries and the new member states stay behind. However, as the new member states invest more in their IC, it might be expected that their positions will improve in the future. The aim of our paper was to measure the progress of the Lisbon Agenda for growth and jobs. Based on our measurements we conclude that the EU-19 is successful in terms of creating more and better jobs, but not successful in terms of delivering stronger, lasting growth.
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