Discrimination against Mobile EU Citizens: Evidence from a Conjoint Experiment in Germany before and during the COVID-19 lockdown

One of the greatest achievements of the European Union (EU) is the freedom of movement between member states offering citizens equal rights in EU member states. Yet, it is questionable if all mobile EU citizens are treated equally due to the increasing cultural diversity following the EU enlargement. We test preferential treatment of EU-citizens in two hypothetical choice experiments in Germany at two different time points: in the period before and during the COVID-19 lockdown. Theories of responses to threat suggest that the COVID-19 crisis should increase discrimination against mobile EU-citizens. While our findings reveal sizeable discrimination based on nationality and language proficiency of mobile EU citizens, the findings also suggest that, contrary to expectations, discrimination did not increase in the initial COVID-19 crisis period.