MEPs demand action on free movement

Date: 03/08/00

By John Shelley

EUROPE'S citizens are being denied one of their most fundamental rights - that of free movement - according to a report due to be adopted by MEPs next month.

In a paper to be considered by the full Parliament in September, French Green MEP Alima Boumediene-Thiery urges the European Commission and member states to close loopholes and untangle the nightmare of bureaucracy which prevents EU nationals from travelling freely within the bloc. "Fifty years after the Treaty of Rome for the first time laid down the principle of free movement of persons, this right is still impeded or even ignored," she says.

According to Boumediene-Thiery, students, retired people and migrant workers all face discrimination which prevents them from exercising their right to move freely because member states abuse rules which give them the power to refuse residence to people for reasons of public policy, security or health.

Most notably, the laws allow governments to refuse residence permits in some circumstances to people who could become a burden on social support systems.

But Boumediene-Thiery says member states use the legislation to introduce unreasonable administrative hurdles with, for example, students often forced to deposit large sums of money in host country banks to prove their wealth and pensioners repeatedly required to go through the expensive process of renewing their residence papers. In some countries, a certificate of good behaviour is required to get a permit to stay, even though such a document may be unheard of in the country of origin.

Together, these regulations can leave pensioners and students trapped in a Kafkaesque nightmare of impenetrable red tape, according to Boumediene-Thiery. "Very often the people concerned find themselves in a vicious circle of demands from different authorities," she says.

Workers also face unrealistic hurdles, argues the paper, with temporary employees facing the impossible task of proving they will work for at least three months, and part-time workers refused residence permits on the grounds that they cannot provide adequate means of subsistence.

"Consideration of these various situations shows that in all too many cases, European citizenship is an empty phrase, both for 'atypical' workers and for the 'non-economically active'," says the report. "Time and again, access to the employment market, education and to residence without an economic activity is subject to excessive economic conditions."

The paper argues that to tackle the problem, the Commission must overhaul directives governing residence rights and EU legislation should be drawn up to compel member states to break the vicious administrative circles in which citizens find themselves. The report also supports Commission plans to launch publicity campaigns to make citizens more aware of their legal rights.

Europe's citizens are being denied one of their most fundamental rights, that of free movement, according to a report due to be adopted by MEPs in September.