K.A and others – The Zambrano Story Continues
By Sarah Progin-Theuerkauf On 8 May 2018, with the judgment in K.A. and others vs. Belgium , the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) has added another piece to the now quite big puzzle that surrounds the legal status of EU citizens (and their third country family members). It ruled that Article 20 TFEU can be violated if a Member State refuses to examine a request for family reunification of a EU citizen with a third country national solely on the basis of an existing entry ban against the third country national. The Court argued that if the refusal compels the EU citizen to leave the territory of the EU as a whole, it deprives EU citizens of the genuine enjoyment of the substance of the rights conferred by virtue of their status. Like in the Zambrano case, the EU citizens in K.A. had never exercised their right to free movement. Just a quick reminder of the Court’s main findings in Zambrano: In that case, Belgium had denied a right of residence to a Co...