EU PROPOSING NEW CHANGES ON FREE MOVEMENT

[hk79]

Cutting off free movement air of EU citizens living abroad
by EU free movement
There are EU citizens who live outside the EU. A Migration Policy Institute article says four million EU citizens were living just in the USA in 2014. Hundreds of thousands (millions?) more live in Canada, Singapore, Hong Kong, China, Australia, Brazil, Kazakhstan, India...

spt-europe2015-f4
Distribution of Europeans living in the US

The European Commission and the British government are presently proposing to dramatically reduce the fee movement rights of those EU citizens who are married to non-EU citizens and who live outside the EU.

These EU citizens work, buy houses, get married (usually to non-Europeans, since most people around them are not European), have children: just normal daily life. Often they stay forever in their new home, and sometimes they decide to move back to Europe for any of a thousand good reasons.

Presently, European Free Movement law allows them to trivially move to any European country (apart from their natural home country of European citizenship). Their move, and that of their family, is hassle free, and they can easily do it even for short periods.

Some examples I personally know of people moving/working in Europe on the basis of EU free movement law:

Swiss computer engineer with Vietnamese wife (married 6 years) and two children recently moved to work in the UK from Singapore
French musician and US husband (married 21 years) live in Seattle and both perform together in UK folk music venues (mostly music clubs and pubs)
British citizen professor lives in Canada with Canadian wife (married 11 years) and child do a sabbatical year in Paris
These examples can happen because the non-EU spouses is not required to satisfy restrictive local member state immigration laws. Because the spouse can come along, these EU citizens have been able to use their free movement rights.

What are the Commission and British government proposing?
The Commission intends to adopt a proposal to complement Directive 2004/38 on free movement of Union citizens in order to exclude, from the scope of free movement rights, third country nationals who had no prior lawful residence in a Member State before marrying a Union citizen

This is proposed in a Commission document addressing "abuse of the right of free movement of persons", but the exclusion is not limited to cases where is actual abuse. It would apply to each of the spouses mentioned above, because none of them had ever resided in Europe before marrying their (EU-citizen) spouses.

As Steve Peers points out, the wording says that "lawful residence" must have happened before the start of the marriage. If it was not there when the couple married, there is nothing which can change the situation. Not 20 years of marriage, and not a subsequent period of lawful residence in Europe.

This does not seem to be an attempt to tackle abuse. It seems only an attempt to reduce the number of Europeans who can take advantage of their treaty right of free movement.

Why is this important?
It is generally hard to get European citizens to take advantage of their free movement rights. They tend to not move away from their home, and language is an issue.

Europeans who live outside Europe have already demonstrated that they are willing to live in a different country (different continent!), to adapt, to work. They tend to be very well educated, and bring valuable experience back to Europe with them.

Why is the European Commission proposing to dramatically restrict the right of free movement of these Europeans? Why would member states agree to this?

What to do?
Maybe pause for a few minutes of amazement that the UK and the European Commission are even proposing this.

Does the European Commission really care about free movement rights? It is not clear, but it is worth reaching out to anyone you can who works there.

Most important is to reach out NOW to the embassies and foreign ministries of your member state. If you are German, call the Auswärtigen Amts or your local embassy. Same if you are French, or Polish, or Hungarian. Let them know that you care, and want to maintain your right of free movement even if you have married a non-European.

Decisions are being made this week, and there will be little chance to influence the outcome after Thursday Feb 18

ANY ONE HEARD OF THIS PROPOSALS?

[jumanufer]

I have never heard of this proposal yet, but honestly it is very wrong if they decide to go through this route. Travelling, learning other cultures, countries, etc, I think heavily improves the person.
Also we live in a 'so called global world' where most of the people are very narrowed minded.
If we have a 'mixed couple' we should celebrate about it!!

What I can tell you is that Ireland used to do this till 2008 or 2009. I mean, if you were an EU citizen living or moving to Ireland and got married with a non EU person, in order to give the nonEU citizen the Stamp 4 visa the couple should have lived for two years in another EU country before moving to Ireland. Otherwise residence permit was rejected.

Of course this was going against the nature of EU law and cases went to the European law and Ireland was forced to change the law.

If we start putting more stoned to the wheel, then certainly this will be the beginning of the end of the EU.

[CR001]

http://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press ... lement-uk/

[That Zimbo Lad]

These proposals were made with Cameron's renegotiations with the EU. At the moment these are
just proposals. Furthermore it is important to note that perhaps the EU felt compelled to give alot
of leeway during the negotiations to these proposals to entice Britain to stay in the EU. In reality the treaties of free movement are fundamental and strike at the heart of the Communities act. In any case I am sure this would have to be voted for in the European parliament, before being submitted to the European council and then the ECJ to be applied into existing laws (if my understanding is correct).

I do not see these proposals passing through these hurdles and even if they did they would be challenged in the ECJ (a la McCarthys vs UK Secretary of State with the article 10 Residence Cards). In my view this would "discourage free movement" by "attacking family members of EU citizens" which is firmly against EU citizen's treaty rights. I do not expect these proposals to have any legs once they start being scrutinized in detail by
the aforementioned European bodies.

As some say this is just "grandstanding" and "posturing" because as I said free movement treaty rights are at the heart of how the EU functions.