The trilemma of EU social benefits law:Seeing the wood and the trees

It is often suggested that migrants’ access to social protection should depend on their integration. The article explores the fraught relationship between that idea and two other values, namely guaranteeing continuous social protection to migrants and avoiding the disharmonies that result from the involvement of several, maladjusted legal orders. Each of these three values tells us something about what EU social benefits law does, why certain choices were made, and how judicious they are. All regulatory tools for coordinating the cross-border access to social benefits can serve two values, but not three. Rule-makers thus face a trilemma, in that they must sacrifice one value to achieve the others.