Integration Requirements for family reunion: the CJEU limits Member States’ discretion

Many Member States have, in recent years, required non-EU citizens who would like to join their family members in the EU to pass a form of integration test first. The EU’s family reunion Directive, which governs the position of family members who want to join non-EU citizens, expressly gives Member States the option: family members ‘may be required to comply with integration measures’. However, in the cases of the family members of refugees and highly-skilled migrants who have an EU Blue Card, the integration measures can only be applied after they come to the country.

What are the limits – if any – on Member States’ discretion to impose such requirements? The CJEU answered that question for the first time in its judgment in K and A. announced on the 9 July 2015.

ECJ: Press Release, No.78, 2015 (09.07.15): Member States may require third country nationals to pass a civic integration examination prior to family reunification http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2015-07/cp150078en.pdf

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