Get to the back of the queue, Spaniard: welfare benefits for migrants questioned in Spain

The debate over national priority in access to social benefits and services has gained momentum trinc an article by Cristian Campos in El Español, denouncing what he sees as a system of "nationals at the back of the queue" in Europe. The piece uses the case of a family in Navarre receiving almost 4,000 euros a month in benefits to argue that the system discourages work and erodes the logic of paying taxes.

Journalist **Cristian Campos** published an article on **23 October 2026** in **El Español** titled «Ponte a la cola, españolito» ("Get to the back of the queue, little Spaniard"), in which he argues that Europe in fact operates a system of "nationals at the back of the queue" in access to benefits and social services. The article starts from a specific premise: if nationality means nothing in the allocation of scarce public resources, paying taxes becomes an irrational act. To illustrate this, he draws on a case reported by the Navarre press in early September of the same year.

## The Navarre family case and the poverty trap

According to the article, a Segarro family made up of a **46-year-old** woman and her two nephews, aged **6 and 9**, receives almost **4,000 euros a month** in benefits in Navarre. The text points out that this amount represents an income higher than that of **90% of Spaniards**. The beneficiary herself, according to the published version, told the Navarre press: "I am not looking for work. They treat us very well."

Campos uses this case to introduce the economic concept of the **poverty trap**. When income from benefits and social welfare approaches or exceeds the wage one would earn by working, the opportunity cost of entering the labour market rises exponentially. The article states that any benefit exceeding the country's average wage will create a "caste of citizens averse to work" who, over time, will become unemployable due to their disconnection from the labour market. They will be, he says, officially poor but privileged in practice.

The text raises a second paradox: a Spanish couple earning two salaries of **1,500 euros a month** each would be paying taxes to finance someone who does not contribute yet enjoys a far higher standard of living than their own. With those **3,000 euros**, the couple must also pay market prices for nursery schools, schools, public transport, a mortgage and perhaps private healthcare, while priority of access to those services goes to a migrant who is still considered vulnerable despite receiving a higher income. It is, the author argues, income redistribution in the opposite direction to the logical one.

## The Dutch minister and social housing

The article brings up the case of the Dutch housing minister **Elanor Boekholt-O'Sullivan**, of the social-democratic party **D66**, who in an interview with **De Telegraaf** said that young Dutch people looking for their first home "can" stay living with their parents so that the social housing built by the Dutch state can be occupied by migrants newly arrived in the country.

Campos argues that the Netherlands is in a situation similar to Spain's, with a shortfall of hundreds of thousands of homes caused by immigration growth and suffocating European taxation. In his view, the minister has turned the social contract on its head: Dutch taxpayers are pushed to the back of the queue for social housing while newcomers are given priority on the grounds that nationals have the option of living with their parents. The reasoning ignores, according to the text, that this family support network is private and pre-existing, not a public right funded by taxes.

The article then poses a question it considers central: if nationality and the taxes paid over a lifetime confer no preference in access to the welfare state's benefits, paying taxes becomes a one-way extraction with nothing in return. The American revolutionary slogan "no taxation without representation" would become, he says, "all the benefits without contribution".

## Citizenship as membership and reciprocity

To underpin his position, Campos draws on several authors. The British sociologist **T. H. Marshall**, in his book *Citizenship and Social Class* (**1950**), defined citizenship as the right to "a modicum of welfare and security" belonging to "all those who are full members of a community". Granting priority to outsiders or newcomers dilutes that membership status and renders nationality irrelevant as the basis of social rights.

The political theorist **Stuart White**, in *The Civic Minimum* (**2003**), formulates the complementary view: "justice as fair reciprocity". Those who benefit from the social product have an obligation to contribute proportionally. Claiming without contributing to the common pot, when nothing prevents one from doing so, "unfairly exploits" fellow citizens. The article also cites **Hegel**, who in his *Philosophy of Right* warns that providing public subsistence "directly, not by means of their work" abusa the principles of civil society, and the British political philosopher **David Miller**, who holds that the welfare state's redistributive solidarity requires a bounded community, the Nation.

The text argues that if nationality implies no preference, the very foundation of the willingness to pay high taxes to sustain the system is eroded. And it asks how the Government intends to stop taxpayers from trying to minimise their fiscal burden or even considering emigrating. In practice, it says, what the Dutch minister is really saying is that if you commit to not working, the state will give you a standard of living higher than that of its own nationals.

## The origins of the welfare state and the humanitarian argument

Campos goes back to the origins of the European welfare systems, after the **Second World War**, when social rights expanded precisely because the war and military service created a sense of mutual debt among citizens. Benefits went to those who had risked their lives for their country or could watch their sons die in the war, or to those who, by virtue of their citizenship, could be called upon for such responsibilities. They were not an entitlement owed for merely existing or for having landed in the country, but compensation for concrete and devastating sacrifices.

The article concedes that the humanitarian argument —keeping migrants off the streets— is acceptable as a temporary obligation and in cases of residual immigration, with a handful of cases a year. But not as a permanent policy of state when immigration reaches Europe in waves of hundreds of thousands each year. The text warns that if the Spanish Government persists in demanding fiscal contributions without the preferential return of membership and grants benefits without prior contribution, paying taxes becomes an irrational act.

As an example of the consequences, the author notes that not even the French welfare state, which he describes as the most bloated on the planet, has managed to integrate second- and third-generation immigrants who, in his view, believe they are owed a historical debt that the West will never be able to repay. The article closes with a personal reflection: when he sees the outcry over "national priority", he can hardly suppress a laugh, and says he would settle simply for Spaniards not being discriminated against in their own country.