PRODEC: FEANTSA submission to the call for evidence on the EU Citizenship report 2023

Full report [PDF]

The European Commission has launched their call for the triennial EU Citizenship report. FEANTSA welcomes this and hereby submits our contribution and recommendations to help mobile EU citizens pushed into destitution and homelessness. 

Our submission focuses on the gaps and irregularities in the transposition and implementation of Directive 2004/38; FEANTSA strongly believes these factors must be recognised and addressed by European legislation and initiatives such as the EU Citizenship report 2023. 

We highlight the ambiguity of terms and concepts related to residency and citizen rights (i.e., worker). Through this Member States are able to implement interpretations restricting the accessibility of residency for vulnerable EU mobile citizens, and their subsequent ability to exit destitution. 

Furthermore, we outline how COVID-related border restrictions and limiting the access to social rights and public spaces reinforced discrimination against destitute mobile EU citizens, and circumstances for the exploitation of said citizens by ill-intended employers. Where access to healthcare, social and housing service was enabled for mobile EU citizens in homelessness or facing precariousness, this was quickly shut down after the end of the pandemic.

We finalise our suggestions with references to relevant case law which defends the rights of Mobile EU citizens and urge the European Commission to monitor the lack of compliance from multiple Member States. 

You can read our full submission here.

For information you can reach us at: migration@feantsa.org (Sergio Pérez Barranco, PRODEC Project Officer) 

“This activity is part of the 3rd phase of the PRODEC project –Protecting the Rights Of Destitute mobile EU Citizens. PRODEC is supported by the European Programme for Integration and Migration (EPIM), a collaborative initiative of the Network of European Foundations (NEF). The sole responsibility for the project lies with the organiser(s) and the content may not necessarily reflect the positions of EPIM, NEF or EPIM’s Partner Foundations.”