Expelling an EU citizen for reasons other than public order, safety and health
Sentencia del Tribunal de Justicia (Gran Sala) de 22 de junio de 2021, Staatssecretaris van Justitie en Veiligheid (Effets d’une décision d’éloignement), C-719/19
Keywords:
citizenship of the European Union, free movement, removal, detention, economically inactive citizenAbstract
The judgment under analysis deals for the first time with the effects of an expulsion order adopted pursuant to Article 15 of Directive 2004/38. This provision regulates the expulsion of a Union citizen who, without posing a risk to public policy, public security, or public health, no longer has a right of residence that justified his presence in the host Member State. In FS, the court focuses on determining what circumstances must be present for an expulsion decision than has been issued against an EU citizen under Article 15 to be considered enforced; and when, therefore, such a citizen may return to the host Member State to take up a new legal residence. This paper also addresses two issues that the ECJ sidesteps in its judgment: the detention of an EU citizen for the purposes of expulsion; and the very legality of expulsion in the FS case. This last question is particularly problematic, since the Court's silence seems to endorse an interpretation that, in the wake of Dano, would harden the condi-tions of residence of economically inactive citizens.
References
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