Ott, Andrea --- "Differentiation through accession law: free movement rights in an enlarged European Union" [2017] ELECD 393; in De Witte, Bruno; Ott, Andrea; Vos, Ellen (eds), "Between Flexibility and Disintegration" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017) 146

Book Title: Between Flexibility and Disintegration

Editor(s): De Witte, Bruno; Ott, Andrea; Vos, Ellen

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781783475889

Section: Chapter 6

Section Title: Differentiation through accession law: free movement rights in an enlarged European Union

Author(s): Ott, Andrea

Number of pages: 33

Abstract/Description:

This chapter aims to illustrate the differentiation in law resulting from the last generation of accession treaties in a core area of the Internal market and having immediate consequences for Union citizens. With the growing complexity of EU law, and the already existing differentiation resulting from the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and the area of freedom, security and justice, accession treaties have triggered extensive temporary differentiation between existing and incoming Member States in the recent accessions of 2004 (Poland, Hungary, Czech and Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia), 2007 (Romania and Bulgaria) and 2013 (Croatia). Not all forms of flexibility mechanisms resulting from the recent accession treaties can be discussed here, with temporary derogations agreed in half of the over 30 chapters of acquis covered in the pre-accession process and during the accession negotiations. The focus will instead rest on the temporary arrangements that limit access to the labour market of the existing EU Member States for migrant workers in all the three recent waves of enlargement. These temporary exceptions from market access for new Member States’ citizens and their families can be also applied by Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Switzerland as a result of the extension of the Internal market to the European Economic Area and due to the EU-Swiss bilateral agreement on the free movement of persons.