Abstract
Despite of its uncontestable success, the fundamental right of freedom of movement has been last years questioned by a number of host Member States. This new approach occurred following the occurrence of events such as the enlargement of the EU to economically poorest countries from Central, Eastern and Southern Europe, the global financial crisis and indirectly, the migration crisis.
Despite of the existing legal limits and large leeway of Member States in restricting this right, some Member States are of the opinion that the current provisions are too liberal and endanger their national interests. They would welcome reforms in order to fight against abuses of rights (so called social tourism), to limit access to social assistance and to preserve their national public policies.
Similarly, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) is reflecting on this issue and recently changed its former generous approach by allowing Germany not to confer social assistance to inactive citizens (Dano 2014, Alimanovic 2015 and Garcia-Nieto 2016). These restricting measures are mainly targeting economically inactive Union citizens on the move, seen by their host Member State as potential unreasonable burdens on their public finance and services.
This question has been also at the heart of the Brexit referendum and will be a key part of the Brexit negotiations. The aim of this article is to reflect and foresee next direction for freedom of movement between a backward steps rights-narrowing (supported by some host Member States), a statu quo (relying on differential treatment for economically inactive citizens) or a pursuit of EU integration towards a more European social model and a single Union citizen statute.