The European Community

Abstract

One of the four fundamental freedoms of the European Economic Community (EEC) is, beside those relating to the free movement of goods, services and capital, the free movement of persons (Articles 3 and 48 ff of the EEC Treaty). A fundamental component of this free movement of persons between the currently nine, and as of 1 January 1981 (with the accession of Greece) ten Member states, is the right of establishment (EEC Treaty, Articles 52 ff).1 In a general legal framework in which the EEC Treaty serves as a basic instrument (French: traite-cadre; German: Rahmenvertrag), the terms ‘free movement of persons’ and ‘right of establishment’ are not elaborated in exhaustive detail, but they imply more than what has been textually laid down in the EEC Treaty. They implicitly refer to numerous ancillary and ‘consequential’ aspects of the free movement of persons involved in wage-earning, non-salaried and other trading and economic activities; for example, the status of such persons with respect to social insurance and the rights of their dependents cannot be but part of the envisaged law regulating the free movement of persons and the right of establishment. The elaboration of such ancillary or consequential aspects have been elaborated accordingly by Community secondary legislation and harmonization (approximation) of the relevant municipal laws of the Member States, and the practice of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has contributed its valuable share to the articulation and consolidation of the law governing the freedom of movement of physical and legal persons and their establishment in one of the Member States of the Community.