Free movement of persons in the European Economic Area (EEA) – different from the EU? by Karin Fløistad:

Free movement of persons in the European Economic Area (EEA) – different from the EU?

Karin Fløistad: PhD Candidate, European University Institute; practicing lawyer at Norwegian law firm Simonsen Vogt Wiig

Free movement of persons continues to be debated in the UK after the Brexit referendum and the EEA Agreement is often referred to regarding the UK's future relationship with the EU.  This post intends to address two differences in the right to free movement of persons in a model of association with the EU outside membership – the EEA Agreement compared to the right to free movement of persons in the EU.

The EEA Agreement extends the EU internal market to include three of the parties to the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) – Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein – but without membership in the Union. The extension of the internal market means, in principle, parallel rights and obligations in the area of free movement (including the right to free movement of persons) and competition law. Nevertheless, certain products (fish and agricultural products, see Article 8(3) EEA) and tax harmonisation are outside the scope of the Agreement. 

However, there are two differences between being subjected to the right of free movement of persons as a Member State of the EU compared to that of being a Contracting Party to the EEA Agreement. The first is the lack of Union citizenship in the EEA. The second is that immigration from other non-EU countries is outside the scope of the Agreement. Hence, free movement of persons is clearly different in the EEA compared to the EU – although the EFTA States have signed up to be part of the EU’s non-EU immigration rules (the Schengen open borders rules and the Dublin rules on asylum responsibility) separately. As will be demonstrated institutional practice (in particular the EFTA Court's case law regarding citizens' right to free movement) has nevertheless made the implications of these differences in the legal framework unclear.  

In legal terms, the two differences are expressed first, through the fact that there are no corresponding provisions to the relevant EU primary law; hence Articles 20-25 TFEU regarding the creation of the concept of Union citizenship and Article 79 TFEU on rights of non-EU citizens are not paralleled in the EEA Agreement. Second, there are parallel differences in secondary legislation: EU laws on non-EU citizens such as Directive 2003/86/EC on the right of family reunification and Directive 2003/109/EC on rights of long term residents have not been made part of the annexes of the EEA Agreement.  Furthermore, the two differences were recently emphasised by the Contracting Parties in a Joint Declaration, which was adopted when the EU’s citizens’ Directive (the main secondary legislation regarding the right to free movement of citizens) was made part of EEA law (Decision by the EEA Joint Committee No 158/2007).

Continue your reading here please: http://eulawanalysis.blogspot.nl/2016/07/free-movement-of-persons-in-european.html



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