European Union Nationals and Association Agreements

The law of the EU has an increasingly significant impact on domestic immigration law. This is not only due to the direct effect of EU laws on the free movement of persons, but also due to the co-ordination and harmonisation of matters of immigration and asylum that takes place at the political and policy level of the EU.

The EU comprises 15 Member States: Austria , Belgium , Denmark , Finland , France , Germany , Greece , Ireland , Italy , Luxembourg , the Netherlands , Portugal , Spain , Sweden and the UK .

The European Economic Area: The European Economic Area (EEA) took effect from the 1 January 1994. It comprises the EU and two of the remaining countries from the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), Iceland and Norway . Switzerland and Liechtenstein , which are both in EFTA, are not yet part of the EEA.

Accession States

On the 1st May 2004 a further ten States gained accession to the EU, they were: Cyprus , the Czech Republic , Estonia , Hungary , Latvia , Lithuania , Malta , Poland , Slovakia and Slovenia . On the 1st January 2007 Bulgaria and Romania joined.

The terms of accession permit existing Member States to impose restrictions on free movement rights for nationals of accession countries. Consequently, only nationals of Cyprus and Malta obtained full rights of free movement on the date of accession. Nationals of the remaining States are subject to a number of severe restrictions - including either the suspension of rights for two years or the imposition of work permit requirement, or both - by all existing members of the Union including the UK .

Association Agreements

In addition to EEA nationals and their families, EU law provides for limited rights of free movement under a number of Association Agreements and Co-operation Agreements with non-EEA countries.

The oldest such Association Agreement is that with Turkey, dating back to 1963, with an Additional Protocol of 1970. The rights granted to Turkish nationals are not reflected either in the Immigration Rules or in the Immigration (European Economic Area) Order and anybody seeking to benefit from them will therefore have to refer directly to EU law.