Dear SMN partners,
Following its report on the application family reunification directive [COM(2008) 610 final], the European Commission (EC) is opening the public debate on EU rules on the exercise of the right to family reunification of third-country nationals residing lawfully in Member States. The family reunification directive applies to all EU Member States except Ireland, Denmark and the United Kingdom. A Green paper has therefore been released on 15 November 2011 [COM(2011) 735 final] inviting all stakeholders to share their views until 1st March 2012.
The CoR is preparing an opinion on the Green Paper. The CIVEX Commission has appointed Mr Soave (IT/PES) as rapporteur. The draft opinion will be adopted in CIVEXon 9 February 2012, whilt the final CoR opinion will be adopted by the Plenary on 3-4 May 2012.
The EU rules on family reunification are of primary interest for the Subsidiarity Monitoring Network. At present, the directive leaves some leeway to Member States on some aspects (e.g. age-limit for applying minor children, waiting period between submission of application and issue of residence permits to family members). Also, the report on the application of the directive has noted a number of issues in the way Member States implement EU rules, some of them imposing for instance additional conditions to applicants. The EC is considering either to modify the directive, to opt for the status quo or to adopt interpretative guidelines. It is therefore essential to assess at this stage whether current rules should be adjusted towards more prescriptive regulation at EU level or remain untouched.
The rapporteur, Mr Soave would be interested in the views of SMN partners and, if applicable, their replies to the questions of the Green paper. The SMN partners are therefore warmly invited to share their replies to the following questions :
- Does your authority have any competence in family reunification? If yes, please describe.
- How is your authority affected by the current EU legislative framework concerning the right to family reunification of third-country nationals? Please describe.
- Would more prescriptive EU level legislation (less "may" clauses or possibilities for derogation) be necessary in your opinion and compatible with the subsidiarity and proportionality principles? Would you rather prefer that interpretative guidelines be developed at EU level?
- Do you take account of a) the best interest of the child [art. 5 (5) of the directive] and b) other factors such as the nature and the solidity of the family relationships, the duration of residence in the Member State or the family, social and cultural ties with the country of origin when examining applications for family reunification? If so, how?
When considering applications for family reunification, what is your experience in evaluating the accommodation and/ or stable and adequate resources conditions required by national law [see art. 7 (1) of the directive]? Do you consider them reasonable and proportionate?
- In your experience, are pre-departure conditions (such as language classes or knowledge of the receiving society) necessary and proportionate to the objectives of the Directive [see art. 7 (2) of the directive]?
Given the tight deadlines for the preparation of the opinion, we would be grateful if you could submit contributions in one of the languages which can be processed by the secretariat (EN, FR, DE, IT and ES). We thank you for your understanding.
Contributions will be forwarded to the Rapporteur of the CoR opinion and published on the SMN website.
We thank you in advance and look forward to receiving your contributions.
With best regards,
The Subsidiarity team
