Freedom of movement and of residence in EU Charter & sundry notes

The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union does not bring the citizens of the EU new rights, but it is a handy compilation of freedoms and rights from a number of sources. More specifically the rights based on EU citizenship are summarised in Title V Citizens’ rights, from Article 39 to Article 46.

The freedom of movement and of residence is found in Article 45 (OJEU 30.3.2010 C 83/400):

Article 45
Freedom of movement and of residence

1. Every citizen of the Union has the right to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States.

2. Freedom of movement and residence may be granted, in accordance with the Treaties, to nationals of third countries legally resident in the territory of a Member State.

Pilgrim’s Progress

Since the theme of free movement of persons (workers) and EU citizenship is played on four blogs and in three languages, here is a record of the latest stages.

EU citizenship: Slow and uneven progress on free movement (10 November 2010) looked at the report from the Commission COM(2008) 840 on the application of Directive 2004/38/EC.

European Parliament supports EU expats (10 November2010) presented two EP resolutions concerning EU citizenship.

The two latest blog posts may pose more of a challenge for international readers. However, machine translation (Google Translate) may be helpful enough. A little assistance to decipher the sources, as well.

Unionsmedborgarskapet: EU-kommissionen aktiverade sig synligt (11 November 2010; in Swedish) looked at the well documented guidance on transposition and application of Directive 2004/38/EC given by the European Commission in COM(2009) 313.


EU-kansalaisten liikkumis- ja oleskeluvapaus Tukholman ohjelmassa (12 November 2010; in Finnish) went on to look at the Stockholm Programme – An open and secure Europe serving and protecting citizens, especially Section 2.2. Full exercise of the right of free movement. (The “canonised” version of the Stockholm Programme in all EU languages was finally published OJEU 4.5.2010 C 115/1.)

The heads of state or government (European Council) seemed to be as keen to crack down on abuse and fraud as they were to guarantee the right of free movement by removing obstacles (pages 8-9).


Stockholm Programme Action Plan

After these sundry notes, the next logical steps for this pilgrim would seem to go towards the Action Plan Implementing the Stockholm Programme – a stage perhaps less straightforward than one would expect.



Ralf Grahn


P.S. Linking England and the Continent like the Channel Tunnel, with the publishing prestige of The Economist and with the advantage of being written in English, Charlemagne’s notebook is one of the “must read” Euroblogs (among the 697 already aggregated by Bloggingportal.eu). Naturally Charlemagne’s notebook is found among Fleishman-Hillard’s selection of Euroblogs.