The EU Integration Process and the Right to Free Movement, Residence and Equal Treatment for Union Citizens

Abstract

This chapter on EU law is a necessary building block for the later EEA analysis. First, this chapter establishes the basics regarding the concept of Union citizenship in the EU legal order and gives a brief historical account of the transformation from economically active persons to the inclusion also of the non-economically active persons into the scope of EU free movement law. This chapter then moves on another key point for the later EEA analysis namely the scope of the harmonisation measures including an analysis of key secondary legislation. The analysis points to the issue of how far measures are harmonised and tries to illuminate the space open to Member States’ own discretion. Having established these concepts the chapter finally demonstrates in particular through the case law of the CJEU how the primary provisions have narrowed the scope of Member States’ freedom in particular in the field of right to free movement for the non-economically active persons. In undertaking this analysis it has been proven useful to distinguish between rights against the host state and rights against the home state—a structure which is also kept in Chaps. 8 and 9 performing the EEA-analysis.