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On 12 February 2026, Vladyslav Heraskevych had his Olympic accreditation withdrawn by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), ending his ability to compete in the Men’s Skeleton event at the Milano-Cortina 2026 Winter Games. The reason provided by the IOC was that the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation (IBSF) had decided that Heraskevych’s “Helmet of Remembrance” was inconsistent with the Olympic Charter and the Guidelines on Athlete Expression – Olympic Winter Games Milano-Cortina 2026 (the Guidelines). It is not clear from the IBSF’s decision which specific Rule of the Olympic Charter or which of the Guidelines is breached by the helmet’s design. The helmet depicts images of 20 Ukrainian athletes who have been killed in the war with Russia. This post will explain why this disqualification, which is now being appealed to the Ad Hoc Division (AHD) of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), should be deemed unlawful and raises key questions regarding the way in which the IOC regulates freedom of expression during the Olympics.

Principle 1 of the Fundamental Principles of Olympism, found at the start of the Olympic Charter, requires “respect for internationally recognised human rights” from everyone in the Olympic Movement. However, Rule 50.2 of the Olympic Charter, the subject of a previous Verfassungsblog Symposium, is an absolute prohibition on athlete activism and on athletes’ freedom of political expression. It states that: “No kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas.”

This must be read alongside Rule 40.2, which states that: “All competitors, team officials or other team personnel in the Olympic Games shall enjoy freedom of expression in keeping with the Olympic values and the Fundamental Principles of Olympism, and in accordance with the Guidelines determined by the IOC Executive Board.” The Guidelines mentioned in Rule 40.2 reiterate that athletes’ freedom of expression is prohibited during Olympic competitions and the Opening, Closing and medal ceremonies.

The applicable Rules and Guidelines raise a number of important legal issues, each of which has come to a head in this case. The outcome of any legal proceedings that follow will not only determine the legality and scope of Rules 40.2 and 50.2 and, therefore, the scope of athletes’ right to freedom of expression during the Olympic Games, but more broadly the constraints that human rights law imposes on the IOC’s decision-making.

Next stop: the CAS Ad Hoc Division

At 16:30 on 12 February, Vladyslav Heraskevych registered his application to challenge the Jury decision of the IBSF. Heraskevych will argue, inter alia, that the decision is disproportionate and requests the annulment of the IBSF Jury decision. By way of provisional measures, he requests that CAS reinstates him in the 2026 Olympic Winter Games with immediate effect, or in the alternative, that the athlete performs a CAS supervised official run pending the final decision.

The AHD sits at all editions of the Olympic Games and determines all disputes arising out of Olympic competitions. Its decisions must be given in under 24 hours to minimise disruption to the events taking place. Yet, as the Skeleton competition took place on the morning of 12 February, the AHD will not be in a position to allow Heraskevych to compete at the Milano-Cortina 2026 Olympics and earn a medal. However, he might be able to recover his accreditation and obtain the formal annulment of his disqualification.

In the process, the AHD would need to determine whether:

• This act of remembrance is a permitted exercise of Heraskevych’s freedom of expression under Rule 40.2 and the Guidelines.
• Heraskevych’s actions are supporting of or in breach of the spirit of Olympism, which requires in Principle 1, “social responsibility and respect for internationally recognised human rights and universal fundamental ethical principles.”
• An interpretation of the Olympic Charter, which leads to Heraskevych’s disqualification for a wearing a memorial helmet, is a necessary and proportionate restriction of the freedom of expression of the athlete.

The criteria for determining a breach of the Guidelines are:

• The degree of disruption caused by the behaviour on the field of play, during an official ceremony or in the Olympic Village.
• Whether the expression constituted advocacy subject to prohibition under international human rights law, such as national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence.
• Whether disciplinary action is necessary to protect the legitimate interests and values of Olympism.
• Whether the expression was a one-time event.
• Whether the Participant subject to disciplinary proceedings carried out the act voluntarily or at the behest of or under pressure from another person, organisation or entity.
• Whether another Participant (e.g. another athlete) complained about the expression.

It is certainly arguable on Heraskevych’s behalf that none of these criteria are satisfied, or that there has been only a minor breach of some of them, and certainly not enough to require the withdrawal of his accreditation and his ex ante disqualification, the harshest sanction available. There has been minimal disruption caused by his wearing of the helmet as all practice sessions and the event itself were able to take place as planned. The expression is lawful under international human rights law and does not constitute hate speech. The helmet promotes Olympism, peace and the Olympic Truce, and there are no known complainants, other than the IBSF and the IOC. As Heraskevych was allowed to wear the helmet in the training runs, it can even be argued that the expression had not yet been made in a competition setting, so that he has been punished for the intention to breach the Guidelines, not their actual breach.

The IOC endorses a total ban on “expression” during Olympic competitions

The regulation of freedom of expression at the Olympic Games is governed by Principle 1, Rule 40.2 and Rule 50.2 of the Olympic Charter, yet there is no explanation of the relationship between them or whether there is a hierarchy that determines their order of application. Principle 1 requires respect for human rights, including freedom of expression, whilst Rule 40.2 restricts that right and Rule 50.2 prohibits its exercise in certain, ill-defined circumstances. In the present case, the argument of the IOC, as applied in practice by the jury of the IBSF, is that Heraskevych violated the IOC athlete expression Guidelines, which have been devised to enable compliance with Rule 40.2’s commitment to “freedom of expression” at the Olympics, and which provide that “expressions are not permitted […]during competition on the field of play”. The publicly available information does not provide further information on the reasoning that led to this conclusion.

Thus, the IOC and the IBSF seem to hold the position that any type of expression (not only political, religious or racial propaganda) is prohibited during competition on the field of play. In other words, athletes are expected to be human robots focused exclusively on performance and showing no trace of any other social commitments or personal views; a total erasure of their individual and collective personality while on the field of play. As IOC President Kirsty Coventry reiterated: the problem is not about the content of the expression, but with the place that it is being expressed. Such a wide interpretation of the notion of expression would, however, be difficult to reconcile with the IOC’s treatment of a range of other cases in the past. For example, at the Opening Ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympics, the Algerian team were not sanctioned when team members threw roses and rose petals into the water to commemorate the deaths of over 100 Algerian independence campaigners who were shot and killed by French police during demonstrations on 17th October 1961. Similarities between the shirt worn by the Palestinian team’s flag bearer in Paris and Heraskevych’s helmet are also clear, yet only Heraskevych has been punished. Heraskevych and the National Olympic Committee of Ukraine both state that the Helmet of Remembrance is a respectful commemoration of athletes killed in the war. It is not a political statement, but an act of remembrance. This interpretation is analogous to the actions of the Algerian delegation at Paris 2024.

The AHD will have to determine why the Paris 2024 “expressions” were deemed acceptable when they occurred during the Opening Ceremony and did not lead to disqualifications, whilst Heraskevych’s helmet was found to be inconsistent with the same Rules and Guidelines. Further, it seems that banning “expressions” wholesale from certain parts of the Olympic Games is problematic from the point of view of legal certainty, as what constitutes an “expression” under the Guidelines remains entirely undefined. It is also unclear how Rule 40.2 relates to Rule 50.2 and whether all forms of expressions are banned or only those with a specific political edge. If the former is true, it would mean that in a truly Orwellian move, the IOC enshrined the right to freedom of expression in the Olympic Charter while at the same time gutting it entirely through its Guidelines on “Athlete Expression” at the most visible moments of the Olympic Games. In any event, one would be hard-pressed to consider that such a vague and indeterminate understanding of “expressions” complies with the principle of legality, which is central to CAS jurisprudence.

Can the IOC’s Guidelines on “Athlete Expression” at the Olympics be reconciled with freedom of expression?

Following the judgment of the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights in Semenya v Switzerland, the CAS (and thereafter the Swiss Federal Supreme Court (SFSC) if the award is challenged in a setting aside procedure) will have to engage in a “particularly rigorous examination” of the case as it constitutes a fundamental restriction of Heraskevych’s freedom of expression as protected under the Swiss Constitution (Article 16) and Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). In principle, a restriction of freedom of expression can be justified only if it is a necessary and proportionate means to achieve a legitimate objective. More precisely, Article 10.2 ECHR limits the ability to restrict freedom of expression to situations that are in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary. These do not include protecting the claimed political neutrality of sport, nor to quote Mark Adams, is it a sufficient reason to ban Heraskevych’s helmet because, “There are 130 conflicts going on in the world. We cannot have 130 different conflicts featured, however terrible they are, during the field of play, during the actual competition.”

The IOC argues that its Guidelines are necessary to guarantee “that sport at the Olympic Games is neutral and must be separate from political, religious or any other type of interference”. It also claims that the expressions of athletes “on the field of play during competitions or official ceremonies may distract the focus from the celebration of athletes’ sporting performances.”  Both rationales seem a priori difficult to reconcile with the limited grounds provided in Article 10 ECHR to justify restrictions on freedom of expression. Stretching it, one could imagine that the IOC could try to defend its Guidelines by claiming that they are necessary for the protection of the rights of other athletes, as well as their health and morals. At this point in time, there is no example of the ECtHR ever considering these aims applicable in a similar case, but this cannot be definitively excluded.

Nevertheless, even if one were to concede the existence of a valid legitimate objective behind the Guidelines, it seems difficult to conclude that they would constitute a proportionate restriction of freedom of expression. It is entirely unclear why, in order to protect the neutrality of the Olympic Movement or the rights of other athletes, every form of “expression” would need to be banned on the field of play. In the case of Heraskevych, it would be for the IOC to demonstrate that him wearing the helmet would actually endanger the safety of his competitors or the fundamental interests of the Olympic Movement.

If the CAS takes seriously its responsibility to ensure that the IOC’s regulations and decisions imposed on Olympians are compatible with international and European human rights law, in line with the IOC’s express commitment in its Olympic Charter, it is difficult to see how it could not declare Heraskevych’s disqualification and loss of accreditation unlawful and reinstate at least the athlete’s accreditation. Any other decision would strengthen the perception that the CAS lacks independence vis-à-vis the Olympic Movement and would subject it to the “particularly rigorous review” of the SFSC. If the latter continues to adopt a lenient approach to its role as a check on the CAS, the case could ultimately reach the ECtHR.

This case is about an athlete in grief wanting to use the unique global platform of the Olympics to pay his respect to his fallen fellow Ukrainian athletes. Let’s not be fooled; while the IOC itself is happy to leverage the visibility of this global event for its own financial benefit and the benefit of its executives by subjecting us to constant advertising, it is denying the opportunity to athletes, who are the pillars of the Olympics, to express their personal views even when they are consensual (as a teary IOC President  Kirsty Coventry acknowledged “No one – no one, especially me – is disagreeing with the messaging”) or aligned with the values of the Olympic Charter. The IOC’s power to exclude the expression of athletes during the Olympics, primarily used to monopolise the attention they create for its own benefit, should be strictly limited and checked. It is CAS’s duty to do so and, if it fails to deliver on this duty, it will be for national and European courts to remind the IOC that human rights are not only a nice label to add to the Olympic Charter but are there to trump power when it is abused.

The post Is the International Olympic Committee’s Decision to Disqualify Vladyslav Heraskevych Legal? appeared first on Verfassungsblog.

Liberal constitutionalism is much maligned today as, at best, a culturally contingent approach to governance, and, at worst, epistemically hubristic. Concepts like the rule of law and the separation of powers, far from expressing universal truths, are said to be inseparably tied to the European Enlightenment. Their continued presence in constitutions around the world is less an indication of their durability and more a reflection of their current status as conceptual driftwood deposited at the high-water mark of Western hegemony.

But is this an accurate account of liberal constitutionalism and does it really square with our understanding of the way legal concepts are recycled between North and South?

Much depends, this contribution contends, on how we conceive of liberal constitutionalism and, in particular, whether it is best thought of as a coherent ideology or as a pragmatic, experimentalist tradition. On the former view, liberal constitutionalism is indeed the take-it-or-leave-it “value package” that mentally colonises even as it purports to liberate. On the latter view, it is a repository of ideas about the institutional preconditions for human flourishing that is arguably quite compatible with the notion of reflexive globalisation.

How Should We Conceive of Liberal Constitutionalism?

The two best-known scholarly accounts of constitutionalism in its liberal form date back to the middle of the last century. As their contributions have typically been summarised, both Charles McIlwain (writing in 1938) and Giovanni Sartori (in 1962) conceived of constitutionalism as being primarily about the limitation of arbitrary power.

For McIlwain, this was the abiding and essential ingredient of constitutionalism that distinguished it from “despotic government”. For Sartori, the early twentieth-century broadening of the term “constitution” to encompass any organisation of governmental power was a betrayal of the original, garantiste conception of constitutionalism associated with the American and French revolutions and, before that, the English system of government. Strictly speaking, he insisted, the term “constitution” should be reserved for a system of government limited by law.

As Nick Barber has noted, this mid-century “negative” conception of constitutionalism has since acquired almost canonical status – as though nothing that happened after World War II might cause us to reconsider its correctness. When attempts are made to update McIlwain’s and Sartori’s accounts, constitutionalism is conflated with judicially managed democracy and pejoratively dismissed as the regrettable Americanisation of the world.

While this captures one important aspect of the concept, the idea that liberal constitutionalism is a political ideology mainly concerned with legal limits on governmental power is an impoverished conception that does much to embolden its opponents.

A political ideology, after all, is a systematic set of ideas that purports to guide conduct in pursuit of a comprehensive world view. Its truths are considered immutable and unchallengeable. Framed like that, liberal constitutionalism is indeed vulnerable to the critique that it is an exclusively Western theory of government that both papers over the abuse of private power (the longstanding left-wing charge) and, when exported to the Global South, rides roughshod over culturally distinct, local traditions of governance.

There is another conception of liberal constitutionalism however, that is both closer to its essential spirit and less vulnerable to these charges. The whole point about liberal constitutionalism, on this second view, is that it is a tradition of thought that allows – nay, actively encourages – contestation over the meaning and context-sensitive institutionalisation of its animating principles. Like liberalism itself, liberal constitutionalism on this view is an ever-evolving tradition of thought that cannot be reduced to a single idea or abiding preoccupation.

Rather than an ideology with fixed parameters, liberal constitutionalism on this second view is best understood as a pragmatic, experimentalist tradition of thinking about the institutional preconditions for human flourishing. It is not a comprehensive world view that purports to provide all the answers to the challenges of modern governance. It is more in the nature of a repository of ideas that can be used to design a constitution in ways that are sensitive to the local context and to feedback from experience.

How Should We Understand Postcolonial Constitution-Making Processes?

When we understand liberal constitutionalism as a pragmatic, experimentalist tradition, processes of postcolonial constitution-making in which liberal ideas have played a role are not necessarily instances of epistemicide or cultural re-colonisation.

Of course, there are instances when this is clearly what is going on. When Britain withdrew from Anglophone Africa, for example, it left behind an almost identical constitution in each country. The similarity in their rights formulations, not to mention the process of their drafting and enactment, is strongly suggestive of an attempt to culturally embalm the postcolonial body politic in the beneficent oils of Western civilisation.

On the aforementioned first conception of liberal constitutionalism, the fact that Britain imposed these constitutions on postcolonial polities did not mean that they were not liberal. Since the marker of that “ideology” is its concern for the limitation of public power, there is enough in these constitutions as a purely textual matter to classify them in that way.

On the second conception, by contrast, nothing could be further from the truth. On this view, the important point is that there was no genuinely democratic process through which the citizens of the countries concerned drew on the liberal-constitutionalist tradition, to fashion out of its abstract principles, formulations that could be said to reflect the needs, cultural values and institutional preferences of the duly elected constitution-makers.

Having this negative example in mind is useful when considering how to typify the very different constitution-making processes that were followed in countries like India from 1947-1949 and South Africa from 1991-1995. In those two countries, subject to some well-known qualifications, there was a genuinely democratic process through which an active citizenry deliberated how best to promote shared ideals, some of which are aptly described as liberal in character.

In India, for example, the Constituent Assembly famously took advice on the framing of the right to personal liberty in Article 21 with a view to avoiding the pitfalls of the American doctrine of substantive due process. In South Africa, the Constitutional Assembly was expressly enjoined to take account of “all universally accepted fundamental rights, freedoms and civil liberties”, by which was meant rights, freedoms and liberties recognised by other liberal democracies.

To be sure, liberal constitutionalism was not the only tradition of thought that influenced the Indian and South African constitution-making processes.

In India’s case, much has been written about the alleged absence of local cultural influences on the 1950 Constitution – “the music of Veena or Sitar”, as it was evocatively put. But revisionist accounts remind us that Hindu nationalist voices, in particular, despite the prohibition of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh after Gandhi’s assassination, were represented in the Assembly and that they did exert some degree of influence on the final text.

The best example here is the Indian Constitution’s treatment of religion, where the American and French model of absolute separation of church and state was eschewed in favour of giving equal public recognition to all major religions. That institutional innovation may be understood as the local adaptation of a liberal-constitutionalist principle under the influence of local traditions and cultural values.

The 1996 South African Constitution is similarly marked by several innovations, some of which are attributable either to the socialist tradition within the African National Congress (ANC) or to the specifically South African struggle against the abuse of power under apartheid. Thus, for example, that Constitution’s innovations in respect of socio-economic rights cannot be understood without taking account of the ANC’s status as a broad political church and the history of anti-apartheid human rights lawyering.

Neither the Indian nor the South African Constitution, in that sense, could be said to have been drafted in a rarefied liberal-constitutionalist laboratory. Their constitution-making processes were exposed to manifold influences and traditions other than liberalism. And, yet, in both instances, the constitutions that emerged are recognisably liberal-constitutionalist in character, at least based on the context-sensitive conception given earlier.

The major apparent deviation from the liberal-constitutionalist tradition, to be sure, is their statism. Neither the Indian nor the South African Constitution is classically liberal in that sense; both are far more preoccupied with promoting and protecting the conditions for constitutional democracy than the American Constitution.

For some, this means that they should be classified as post-liberal. But that is again a view based on the first conception of liberal constitutionalism. On the second conception, these innovations look much more like considered decisions about how best to adapt liberal constitutionalism to the challenges of post-colonial governance.

Liberal Constitutionalism and Reflexive Globalisation

How compatible is this account of postcolonial constitution-making with the concept of “reflexive globalisation”, the thematic focus of the Centre for Advanced Studies RefLex?

At its most basic, reflexive globalisation departs from the premise that the circulation of ideas between North and South is not well understood as the unilateral projection of Western ideas onto the South. Rather, the process of colonisation, as a key stage in the broader process of globalisation, precipitated a mutually co-determinative encounter between North and South that is still ongoing. That understanding is not obviously incompatible, and is indeed, in some respects, resonant with the process of postcolonial constitution-making in India and South Africa just set out.

For one, during the period of colonisation itself, and especially in South Africa’s anti-colonial struggle, the apartheid government’s claim to be upholding Western rule-of-law norms was leveraged in defence of human rights. In the course of that engagement, these norms were given a local inflection, as happened, for example, when the right not to be evicted without a court order was developed in S v Govender 1986 (3) SA 969 (T).

In other instances, Western ideas came up against and were counterposed to local traditions of political struggle against the abuse of power. One thinks here, for example, of Gandhi’s notion of satyagraha, which made its first appearance in South Africa before being redeployed to India in a classic instance of South-South migration.

The point is that colonialism set in motion processes of cross-cultural pollination and hybridisation – matters that have been extensively studied in the humanities and social sciences but not yet in the field of comparative constitutional studies. Conceiving of liberal constitutionalism as a pragmatic, experimentalist tradition, provides a frame through which this gap can be addressed.

The first appealing aspect of viewing the constitution-making processes in India and South Africa as instances of reflexive globalisation is its descriptive accuracy. Rather than the unilateral projection of Western values onto a still subject population, as the decolonial account makes out, those processes are better seen as a process of hybridisation, during which local traditions of political struggle were re-articulated in the language of liberal constitutionalism, in the process transforming that language and generating new conceptual understandings.

Second, seeing things this way gives due recognition to the political agency displayed by constitution-makers in India and South Africa. Rather than passive recipients of Western values, constitution-makers adapted liberal-constitutionalist principles to their sense of the demands of post-colonial justice. As in other processes of cultural hybridisation, the Indian and South African constitution-making processes were sites of encounter between Northern and Southern ideas that left both sets of ideas transformed.

The added virtue of this understanding is that it acknowledges the South as an agent of constitutionalist experimentation and innovation. Rather than the passive recipients of Western cultural norms, Southern constitution-makers were innovators, meditating on how fundamental liberal principles should be promoted in the conditions of the post-colony.

On this view, there is no tension between the second conception of liberal constitutionalism elaborated here and the idea of reflexive globalisation. Indeed, they bear a strong elective affinity to each other and share many of the same concerns.

The post Liberal Constitutionalism in the Post-Colony appeared first on Verfassungsblog.

Schon jetzt leben EU-Bürger*innen ohne Arbeitnehmerstatus in Deutschland sozial prekär: Sie haben weder bedingungslosen Zugang zu Sozialleistungen noch einen Anspruch auf Bürgergeld (§ 7 Abs. 1 Satz 2 SGB II). In den letzten drei Monaten haben drei zentrale politische Akteure – Bundesrat, Sozialstaatskommission sowie Arbeits- und Sozialministerkonferenz (ASMK) – weitere Verschärfungen beschlossen, die für viele tausend EU-Zugewanderte Gesundheitsversorgung, Sozialleistungen und Kindergeld einschränken sollen.

Dieses systematische Programm der Ausgrenzung und Abschottung führt unweigerlich zu massiven Diskriminierungen.

ASMK: Externalisierung der Krankenversorgung

Die ASMK erließ auf ihrer Novembersitzung 2025 einen weitreichenden Beschluss zur Krankenversorgung von EU-Staatsangehörigen. Konkret fordern die Arbeits- und Sozialminister, „Rücknahmeabkommen mit den hauptsächlich betroffenen, insbesondere osteuropäischen Herkunftsländern“ abzuschließen. Diese sollen sowohl Integrations- als auch Rückkehrkonzepte umfassen. Ziel ist, dass EU-Staatsangehörige, die „aufgrund ihrer persönlichen Voraussetzungen (noch) keine realistische Chance auf Integration in den deutschen Arbeitsmarkt haben“, entweder durch „ergänzende Hilfen“ bei „hinreichender Beschäftigungsperspektive“ unterstützt oder „geordnet und mit hinreichender Versorgung“ zur Rückkehr bewegt werden. Die „unfreiwillige Rückführung“ soll einsetzen, wenn das Freizügigkeitsrecht verloren geht.

Dieser Mechanismus ist rechtlich wie praktisch problematisch. Der Begriff „Rücknahmeabkommen“ entstammt der Drittstaatenrückführung und suggeriert eine migrationspolitische Steuerungslogik, die bei EU-Staatsangehörigen mit Freizügigkeitsrecht nicht anwendbar ist. Art. 21 des Vertrags über die Arbeitsweise der Europäischen Union (AEUV) gewährt nämlich ein unmittelbares Freizügigkeitsrecht, das nicht durch bilaterale Abkommen eingeschränkt werden kann. Eine „unfreiwillige Rückführung“ setzt die rechtmäßige Feststellung des Freizügigkeitsverlusts voraus – wird dieser Verlust allein mit der Rückführungsentscheidung begründet, rechtfertigt die Maßnahme sich selbst. Der behauptete Wegfall des Freizügigkeitsrechts dient dann zugleich als Voraussetzung und Ergebnis der Rückführung.

Der Europäische Gerichtshof hat in seinem Urteil vom 15. Juli 2021 (C-535/19) einen vergleichbaren Zirkelschluss für unionsrechtswidrig erklärt. Lettland hatte – wie Deutschland – das Freizügigkeitsrecht vom Bestehen eines Krankenversicherungsschutzes abhängig gemacht (Art. 7 Abs. 1 Buchst. b der Freizügigkeitsrichtlinie 2004/38/EG) und gleichzeitig den Zugang zur Krankenversicherung verweigert, weil kein Freizügigkeitsrecht bestand. Der EuGH stellte klar: Mitgliedstaaten können nicht einerseits das Freizügigkeitsrecht vom Krankenversicherungsschutz abhängig machen, wenn sie andererseits den Zugang dazu verweigern.

Nach Art. 11 Abs. 3 Buchst. e der Verordnung (EG) Nr. 883/2004 zur Koordinierung der Systeme der sozialen Sicherheit (VO 883/2004) unterliegen wirtschaftlich inaktive Personen den Rechtsvorschriften des Wohnmitgliedstaats. Das Herkunftsland ist bei Wohnsitznahme in Deutschland nicht zuständig für die von der Verordnung erfassten Bereiche der sozialen Sicherung – insbesondere nicht für Krankenversicherung, Familienleistungen und Arbeitslosenversicherung. Stattdessen zeichnet VO 883/2004 Deutschland für wirtschaftlich inaktive EU-Staatsangehörige mit deutschem Wohnsitz verantwortlich. Diese Zuständigkeit verpflichtet zur Gewährleistung eines Krankenversicherungsschutzes – unabhängig davon, ob die Voraussetzungen für ein Aufenthaltsrecht nach der Freizügigkeitsrichtlinie erfüllt sind. Eine „Rückkehr ins Herkunftsland zur Inanspruchnahme dortiger Versorgung“ – wie von der ASMK gefordert – widerspricht diesem System und verschärft den rechtswidrigen Zirkelschluss sogar: Die „freiwillige Rückkehr“ wird zum Euphemismus, wenn die Alternative existentielle Not durch Obdachlosigkeit, Hunger und unbehandelte Krankheiten bedeutet.

Sozialstaatskommission: „Produktive“ Freizügigkeit

Auch die Empfehlungen der Sozialstaatskommission sind unionsrechtswidrig. Die vom Bundesministerium für Arbeit und Soziales eingesetzte Kommission legte am 28. Januar 2026 ihren Bericht zur „Modernisierung und Digitalisierung des Sozialstaats“ vor. Die fünfte von 26 Empfehlungen zielt direkt auf die Arbeitnehmerfreizügigkeit: Der Zugang zu Sozialleistungen soll künftig an eine „vollzeitnahe oder Vollzeitbeschäftigung“ und eine „ausreichende Mindestbeschäftigungsdauer“ geknüpft werden. Die Begründung: Das derzeitige EU-Recht ermögliche Leistungsansprüche „schon bei relativ geringfügigem Umfang“ der Beschäftigung und habe „Fehlanreize zur Folge“.

Diese Forderung würde fundamentale Prinzipien der Freizügigkeit außer Kraft setzen. Nach der Rechtsprechung des EuGH begründet bereits eine „echte und tatsächliche“ Beschäftigung den Arbeitnehmerstatus – unabhängig von Stundenumfang oder Einkommen (grundlegend EuGH, Urteil vom 3. Juni 1986, Lawrie-Blum, C-66/85). Die geforderte Beschränkung auf Vollzeittätigkeit würde insbesondere jene Branchen treffen, in denen EU-Staatsangehörige aus ärmeren Mitgliedstaaten überproportional vertreten sind: Reinigung, Pflege, Gastgewerbe, Saisonarbeit. Frauen wären besonders betroffen, da sie häufig mehrere Teilzeitverhältnisse parallel ausüben. Eine Reinigungskraft mit drei Minijobs (zusammen 20 Stunden wöchentlich) würde trotz Erwerbstätigkeit jeglichen Anspruch auf Sozialleistungen verlieren.

Bundesrat: Zugänge maximal beschränken

Nur zwei Tage nach der Sozialstaatskommission beschloss der Bundesrat ein Zehnpunkteprogramm zur „Bekämpfung von Sozialleistungsbetrug“. Punkt sieben fordert die Prüfung „strengerer Voraussetzungen für den Zugang von EU-Ausländerinnen oder EU-Ausländern zum Bürgergeld“. Konkret soll eine Ausnahme für Arbeitnehmerinnen und Arbeitnehmer oder Selbstständige geschaffen werden, „die nicht bereits mindestens zwölf Monate vor Stellung des Antrages auf Bürgergeld in einem EU-Staat sozialversicherungspflichtig beschäftigt waren“.

Punkt acht fordert zudem eine Indexierung des Kindergeldes für Kinder von EU-Staatsangehörigen, die nicht mit dem Bezugsberechtigten in Deutschland leben. Das Kindergeld soll „an die Lebenshaltungskosten des Aufenthaltsortes des Kindes im EU-Ausland angepasst werden“. Diese Forderung hat der EuGH bereits 2019 (C-322/17) und 2022 (C-328/20) als europarechtswidrig zurückgewiesen. Der Gleichbehandlungsgrundsatz (Art. 18 AEUV) verbietet eine Differenzierung nach dem Wohnort der Kinder. Hier ignoriert der Bundesrat europarechtliche Vorgaben.

Mehrfache Exklusion

Eine Umsetzung der von ASMK, Sozialstaatskommission und Bundesrat geforderten Maßnahmen würde EU-Staatsangehörige also mehrfach ausschließen: vom Krankenversicherungsschutz, von Sozialleistungen und vom Kindergeld.

Diese mehrfache Exklusion trifft nicht alle EU-Staatsangehörigen gleich. Sie richtet sich gezielt gegen Menschen aus ärmeren Mitgliedstaaten, insbesondere aus Südosteuropa. Der Bundesratsbeschluss konstruiert explizit das Bild krimineller Banden, die „oftmals EU-Bürgerinnen und EU-Bürger aus dem südosteuropäischen Ausland unter menschenunwürdigen Bedingungen in ‚Schrottimmobilien’ untergebracht“ hätten (siehe Zehnpunkteprogramm, S. 3). Diese Verknüpfung ethnisiert das Problem und lenkt von den strukturellen Ursachen ab: Ein Wohnungsmarkt, der systematisch diskriminiert. Ein Arbeitsmarkt, der systematisch ausbeutet. Ein Krankenversicherungssystem, das systematisch Lücken produziert.

Wider dem Missbrauchsnarrativ

Die Beschlüsse greifen auf das Narrativ des „Sozialleistungsbetrugs“ und der „Fehlanreize“ zurück. Doch die empirischen Daten widerlegen diese Darstellung.

Das Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung dokumentiert im Zuwanderungsmonitor für bulgarische und rumänische Staatsangehörige – auf jene zielen die Maßnahmen in erster Linie – eine Beschäftigungsquote von 69 Prozent (Oktober 2025). Sie liegt deutlich über dem Durchschnitt der ausländischen Bevölkerung (57,8 Prozent) und entspricht fast der deutschen Beschäftigungsquote. Die SGB-II-Hilfequote liegt wiederum mit 14,1 Prozent deutlich unter dem Durchschnitt der ausländischen Bevölkerung von 19,5 Prozent. Dass trotz dieser hohen Erwerbsbeteiligung mehr als 182.000 Menschen auf SGB-II-Aufstockung angewiesen sind, verweist nicht auf mangelnde Arbeitswilligkeit, sondern auf strukturelle Ausbeutung im Niedriglohnsektor.

Die Bundesarbeitsgemeinschaft Wohnungslosenhilfe dokumentiert auf der Datengrundlage von 2023, dass 20 Prozent der nicht-deutschen Klientinnen und Klienten in Wohnungsnotfällen erwerbstätig sind – mehr als doppelt so viele wie bei deutschen Staatsangehörigen (8,6 Prozent). Gleichzeitig verfügen 27,5 Prozent der EU-Staatsangehörigen in Wohnungsnotfällen über keinen Krankenversicherungsschutz.

Die hohe Beschäftigungsquote besteht trotz einer systematischen Diskriminierung: Konzentration in prekären, schlecht bezahlten Beschäftigungsverhältnissen, Ausbeutung durch Werkverträge, Mietwucher in „Schrottimmobilien“, systematische Lohnvorenthaltung. Das Problem ist nicht Missbrauch, sondern strukturelle Prekarität. Menschen arbeiten, können sich aber trotz Erwerbstätigkeit keine angemessene Wohnung leisten und keinen Krankenversicherungsschutz aufbauen. Sie geraten in Wohnungsnot nicht wegen „Fehlanreizen“, sondern wegen Niedriglöhnen, Diskriminierung auf dem Wohnungsmarkt und eines Krankenversicherungssystems, das systematisch Lücken produziert.

Zwei-Klassen-Freizügigkeit

Die Beschlüsse konstruieren faktisch eine Zwei-Klassen-Freizügigkeit entlang sozioökonomischer Statusmerkmale: Freizügigkeit wird gewährt für gesunde, gut qualifizierte, finanziell abgesicherte und sozial vernetzte Personen – unabhängig von ihrer Herkunft. Aber sie wird verweigert für chronisch Kranke, gering Qualifizierte, Mittellose oder sozial Isolierte. Wer aufgrund geringer Qualifikation, chronischer Erkrankung oder fehlender Ressourcen hilfebedürftig wird, soll „zurückkehren”. Die geforderten Anforderungen – zwölf Monate sozialversicherungspflichtige Beschäftigung, bedarfsdeckendes Einkommen, Krankenversicherungsschutz – treffen zwar überproportional Menschen aus ärmeren Mitgliedstaaten, insbesondere Roma aus Bulgarien und Rumänien. Die entscheidende Trennlinie ist aber nicht die Herkunft, sondern die individuelle Verwertbarkeit am Arbeitsmarkt. Diese Ökonomisierung von Grundrechten ist mit dem Prinzip der europäischen Integration unvereinbar.

Die vermeintliche „Missbrauchsbekämpfung“ deutet die soziale Ungleichheit zwischen EU-Mitgliedstaaten in individuelles Fehlverhalten um und verfestigt die strukturelle Diskriminierung legislativ. Statt ihre eigene Zuständigkeit anzuerkennen, verlagern ASMK, die Sozialstaatskommission und der Bundesrat ihre Verantwortung systematisch.

So fordert die ASMK „Rücknahmeabkommen“ und „Aufklärungskampagnen“, damit Herkunftsländer ihre Staatsangehörigen besser versorgen und Migration verhindern. Die Sozialstaatskommission verlangt „vollzeitnahe Beschäftigung“ als Voraussetzung für Leistungszugang – eine Anforderung, die Menschen aus Ländern mit schwächeren Arbeitsmärkten und höherer Teilzeitquote systematisch ausschließt. Beide Strategien setzen implizit voraus, dass die Herkunftsländer für ihre Staatsangehörigen zuständig bleiben sollen – obwohl diese nach EU-Koordinierungsrecht bei Wohnsitznahme in Deutschland den hiesigen Rechtsvorschriften unterliegen.

Der Bundesrat fordert explizit, die Bundesregierung solle sich „auf europäischer Ebene“ für Rechtsänderungen beim Bürgergeld und Kindergeld einsetzen. Die EU-Ebene soll im Rahmen der Europäischen Säule sozialer Rechte für bessere Sozialsysteme in den Herkunftsländern sorgen. Dies mag ein langfristiges Ziel sein, hilft aber den Menschen nicht, die heute krank und ohne Versorgung sind. Die Strategie verschiebt die Verantwortung zeitlich (langfristige EU-Reform) und räumlich (andere Mitgliedstaaten).

Alle drei Akteure schweigen zur Finanzierung der praktischen Versorgung. Kommunale Clearingstellen und niedrigschwellige Angebote der Gesundheitsversorgung sollen das Problem lösen, ohne dass ihre dauerhafte Finanzierung durch Bund oder Länder gesichert ist. Die faktische Verantwortung wird auf die kommunale Ebene und zivilgesellschaftliche Akteure abgewälzt, die bereits jetzt die Lücken des Systems notdürftig schließen müssen.

Fazit

Deutschland erkennt die eigene rechtliche Zuständigkeit nach EU-Koordinierungsrecht nicht an. Stattdessen konstruieren ASMK, Sozialstaatskommission und Bundesrat ein System, das diese Zuständigkeit faktisch ausschließt – indem sie auf die Herkunftsländer verweisen (die nicht zuständig sind), eine EU-Rechtsänderung fordern (statt geltendes Recht anzuwenden) und die finanzielle Last auf die Kommunen abwälzen (ohne diese ausreichend finanziell zu stützen). Keine der vorgeschlagenen Maßnahmen adressiert die strukturellen Ursachen in Deutschland – die systematische Diskriminierung auf dem Wohnungsmarkt, die Ausbeutung im Niedriglohnsektor, die Lücken im Krankenversicherungssystem. Stattdessen wird soziale Verantwortung verlagert, verschoben und abgewehrt – und eine Zwei-Klassen-Freizügigkeit konstruiert, die mit den Grundprinzipien der europäischen Integration unvereinbar ist.

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