Re-bounding EU citizenship from below: practices of healthcare for '(Il)legitimate EU Migrants' in Italy.

Since multiple crises are currently affecting Europe, interest on changes in intra-EU mobility patterns, policies and EU movers' strategies of integration has re-emerged in academic debates. What seems to still lack to date is a focus on the chaining actors linking the macro level of policies and the micro level of individual strategies, that is, civil servants who are in charge of implementing national policies in their daily encounters with EU citizens. Through an in-depth qualitative analysis of formal policies and daily practices in the field of healthcare for EU citizens in Piedmont, in the North of Italy, this contribution analyses how EU citizens' right to free movement and equal access to social protection is officially framed and concretely enacted within the boundaries of the Italian National Healthcare System and the role of health workers as de facto citizenship-makers. It suggests that, along with managerial orientations, different evaluations of the Italian economic and financial situation, and of EU citizens' root motivations behind their decisions to move across Europe play a crucial role in shaping health workers' assessments of EU citizens' deservingness of healthcare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]