AEMI

Expulsion of Economically Inactive
European Union Citizens 1
Solange Maslowski 2
The freedom of movement and residence
has for a long time been reserved to economically
active persons (workers and
self-employed persons), who represented
a kind of privileged category of nationals
of Member States 3 . Since the establishment
citizenship of the European Union
by the Maastricht Treaty, economically
active and inactive nationals of Member
States henceforth constitute only
one category, the one of Union citizens.
Economically active and inactive Union
citizens enjoy all the rights provided by
Article 20 of the Treaty on the Functioning
of the European Union (hereinafter
‘TFEU’) 4 , the right of freedom of movement
and residence being the first right
mentioned by the article. This right is
moreover enshrined in primary Union
law in Article 21 TFEU 5 and in Article
45 of the EU Charter of Fundamental
Rights 6 . Nevertheless, economically inactive
Union citizens had to wait until
the adoption of Directive 2004/38/EC,
referred to as the Citizenship Directive, 7
to see their right of freedom of movement
associated to the right of mobile
workers in one single instrument. Indeed,
before 2004, Union secondary
law was not only differentiating economically
inactive Union citizens from
workers but also the different categories
of economically inactive Union citizens
between themselves, each category being
dealt with in a different directive 8 . The
number of legal instruments regulating
the freedom of movement of Union citizens
was undermining the clarity and
the legal security of this fundamental
right. The Court of Justice of the European
Union also played a considerable
role in the recognition of the freedom
of movement of economically inactive
Union citizens as its decisions served
as grounds for the writing of Directive
2004/38/EC.
Who are these economically inactive
Union citizens? Taking into account
Article 7 of Directive 2004/38/EC, we
can differentiate two main categories of
economically inactive Union citizens allowed
to reside in host Member States:
- Economically inactive persons who
are self-sufficient and in possession of
sickness insurance coverage, including
pensioners, first-time job seekers 9 and