EU Rights

ECAS empowers citizens to exercise their rights and campaigns for an inclusive, transparent and democratic Europe, where the benefits of EU citizenship can be fully tapped.

The right to free movement of persons is one of the four fundamental freedoms underpinning the European project. It is also the right which EU citizens consider to be the most notable achievement of European integration.

ECAS has an extensive track record in helping EU citizens in exercising their right to free movement and in-depth knowledge of the problems associated with its implementation.

For the last 20 years, ECAS has been running “Your Europe Advice” – an EU-funded advice service provided by ECAS’ team of 60 legal experts in all 24 official EU languages and across all 28 EU Member States. In 2015, ECAS’ legal experts responded to 24,667 enquiries from citizens on their rights under EU law covering social security, residence and visas, work issues, taxes, and more. This represents an increase of 9.3% compared to 2014.

On 27 June 2016 ECAS responded to its 200,000th enquiry from an EU citizen.

In addition, in partnership with the University of Kent in Brussels, ECAS established the EU Rights Clinic, which helps EU citizens and their family members who are faced with complex problems when moving around the EU. The Clinic handles approximately 70 cases annually.

Considering the deteriorating framework of free movement rights’ enforcement in recent times, in addition to the populist rhetoric on the issue in certain Member States, in 2014 the EU Rights Clinic and ECAS launched the Right to Move Campaign based on 7 Strategies to support free movement in the EU.

In the timeframe 2015 – 2020 ECAS is working to:

• Provide legal advice and help to EU citizens who exercise their right of free movement.
• Promote the enforcement of European fundamental freedoms and good governance in the EU.
• Raise awareness of all aspects of citizens’ right to move.
• Provide specialised training to rights advice organisations.