The Right to Family Reunification in Relation to Third Country Nationals within the European Union

Abstract

The paper aims to establish the character of the right to family reunification and to bring together allthe situations in which a Member State of the European Union is “forced” to asses the application for the familyreunification with a third-country national, in accordance with the EU law, both primary and secondary, incidentin the case at hand. The family reunification, as the most important form of migration in the European Union,was subject to previous research, research that was conducted only at a sectored level. Therefore, the “puzzlepieces” must be put together and a “whole picture” conclusion is necessary. It will be submitted that familyreunification right, although derives from a fundamental human right – the right for respect of family life, itseffects depend majorly on the specific factual and legal situation of the ‘beneficiary’ of such a fundamentalright.

Keywords

• Directive 2003/86/EC
• Directive 2004/38/EC
• EU Charter
• European Convention on Human Rights