Protecting EU Nationals in Third Countries: The Mechanisms of Bilateral Social Security Agreements

While there is a plethora of literature that focuses on the social protection of mobile individuals, most of this literature delves in the analysis of the social policies that immigrants-receiving countries implement. When shifting the perspective to the social protection policies that sending countries put forward for their diasporas, most of the studies explore the schemes that non-EU sending countries apply. In addition, when examining the topic of social protection of mobile individuals in the EU, the scope of the literature unavoidably emphasizes on the progressive EU legislation for intra-EU migrants and third country nationals settling in the EU, yet very little is known about the social protection of EU nationals settled in third countries. In this aspect the Bilateral Social Security Agreements are a useful instrument of international social security that safeguard the social rights of mobile individuals. Although the BSSAs have been extensively studied by legal scholars related to their characteristics, history and evolution, very few migration scholars have explored their properties. Most of the relevant work in this area focuses on specific migration corridors between third-countries and EU member states. Hence the aim of this research would be to bridge two distinct literature strands, the one of diaspora studies and the one of international social security law, in order to better understand both the mechanisms of the BSSAs but also to examine from a comparative perspective the personal and material scope of the agreements that the EU members have signed over the past 75 years.