A third country national who is the parent of a European Union citizen may, under certain conditions, enjoy a secondary right of residence of more than three months in the host Member State: this was the ruling handed down by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in a judgment on Thursday 10 April (case C-607/21).
A Moroccan national who entered Belgium in 2011 is applying for family reunification with a Belgian citizen. After this application was rejected, she lodged applications in 2015 and 2017 for a right of residence as a direct relative in the ascending line dependent on the Netherlands partner of her son, who, in 2005, had made a declaration of cohabitation with him to the Belgian authorities.
However, the Belgian authorities were of the opinion that the documents dated from a period prior to the applicant’s arrival in Belgium and were therefore too old to enable her to prove that she was dependent on the household.
The Court interprets Directive 2004/38/EC on the right of EU citizens and their family members to move and reside freely within the EU. It is considers that, in order for the direct relative in the ascending line of the partner of an EU citizen residing legally in another Member State to benefit from a derived right of residence, he or she must demonstrate that he or she is dependent on the household both on the date of application for a residence card and on the date of arrival in the host Member State.
To prove that they were dependent on the household at the time of their arrival in the host country, the family member of an EU citizen’s partner must be able to produce documents issued in the past attesting to the time when they were dependent in their country of origin. These documents cannot be deemed too old, the European judge added.
Furthermore, where these conditions are met, according to the CJEU, the right of residence of this direct relative in the ascending line cannot be refused on the grounds that he or she is residing illegally in the country where the EU citizen and his or her partner are established.
See the judgment of the Court of Justice: https://aeur.eu/f/gdj (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)