INTRODUCTION

The right to enter and reside in any of the Member States, subject to the conditions provided for in Directive 2004/38, is one of the most important rights granted to citizens of the Union. In order to make this right fully effective EU law also restricts the discretion of Member States in refusing entry and terminating residency rights of Union citizens; and it provides for procedural safeguards in order to guarantee the effective enjoyment of Union rights by Union citizens.

In this chapter I am going to focus on two different issues: first of all, I will analyse the conditions which have to be satisfied by the citizen in order to gain residency rights. In particular, for stays of between three months and five years, the Union citizen must be either economically active or economically independent, which is to say have sufficient resources and comprehensive health insurance so as not to become a ‘burden’ on the host welfare system. The question arises as to when, if the citizen fails, or ceases, to meet those conditions, can a Member State expel a Union citizen. Secondly, I will analyse expulsion measures justified on public policy/public security grounds. My overall conclusion is that the Court has retreated from a purposive interpretation of Union citizenship and Directive 2004/38, so that it is only ‘good’ citizens that enjoy rights arising from membership of the European Union family. The errant, the poor and the diverse might find that they have limited rights from Member States other than their own: thus Union citizenship, as recently interpreted, reinforces traditional notions of ‘belonging’ by nationality, so that responsibility for the weaker and less attractive members of society continues to be vested on their state of origin, regardless of the actual link that the citizen has with the latter and the host Member State respectively.