By Anja Lansbergen, EUDO CITIZENSHIP consortium member

15 November 2011: Case C-256/11, Dereci and others v Bundesministerium für Inneres

ECJ decides that third country national family members of static EU citizens will derive a right of residence in a Member State under Article 20 TFEU only under exceptional circumstances. The appropriate test is whether the EU citizen would be ‘deprived of the genuine enjoyment of the substance of her rights’ by refusal of residency to his or her third country national family member, by virtue of being forced to leave the territory of the Union. That it may be desirable (either on economic grounds or in order that the Union citizen may keep his family together in the territory of the Union) for such a family member to reside within the territory of the Union is not sufficient to establish that the Union citizen will be forced to leave the territory of the Union if such a right of residence is not granted.

Read the case summary and comment by Anja Lansbergen, the full judgment, the AG view in French and the AG view in German.