Freedom of Movement Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Freedom of Movement - Essay Example As Sergio Carrera (2005) suggests, "the right to move freely represents one of the fundamental freedoms of the internal market as well as an essential political element of the package of rights linked to the very status of EU citizenship." So the right to free movement is one of the foundations of the community, but there are "hidden and visible obstacles to the free movements of persons in Europe" (Carrera, 2005) that need to be considered. How many EU citizens has the free movement law enabled The last available statistics are for 1999, when the European Commission calculated that there were 2,700,000 EU Nationals (1.8% of the total workforce) working in a member state other than their own. (European, 2001) While not a massive number proportional to the total population, the migration of the workforce that these people represent are an essential part of the structure of a unified Europe. The whole question of the free movement of people within the EU is in fact part of a much broader question that has yet to be answered or even fully defined. Namely, is Europe heading towards a genuine federal unity or merely a patchwork of relationships between countries that have very close ties but which are still quite clearly separate sovereign states The basic question is, will there be a United States of Europe Until Europeans decide upon how this question needs to be framed, and in what way it will be answered, matters such as the free movement of persons will always be subject to this often unspoken but overwhelming dilemma: what is Europe As Craig and de Burca put it, "despite all the discussion in recent years of a finalite politique, this active, reflexive and constantly changing polity seems unlikely to reach a firm settlement in the near future." (Craig, 2003) This discussion will be divided into two basic sections. First the movement of EU citizens, and second, the movement of non-EU citizens throughout the community. Together with these two sections, the events of 9/11/2001 and the subsequent tightening of security throughout Europe brought about a division between "pre" and "post" 9/11. While the full connotations of the post 9/11 security measures have yet to be fulfilled, it does represent a watershed in law regarding movement. First, movement of EU citizens in the context of the Treaty and subsequent case-law. In 1997 the draft Treaty of Amsterdam was published, and it Article B gave impetus to "the abolition of internal borders between the Member States and the regulation of admission of persons through external borders." (Amsterdam, 1997) While three member states (UK, Ireland and Denmark) opted out of this provision, the European Court of Justice was given jurisdiction to interpret measures that were brought in by the European Parliament, "though with a more limited jurisdiction than in any other field of community law." (Guild, 1998) After the Treaty of Rome and subsequent Treaties that drew European countries into union, the concept of the free Movement of Persons was based upon economic policy. If there was to be free movement of trade then people needed to be included within the equation. As Jeffrey (2004) puts it, "in this context human beings were treated as being simply another economic factor within the new European market: persons were given a right to move freely within that market, but so were investments, professional services, machine tools, and cheeses."