Comprehensive Sickness Insurance as a Condition for EU Citizens' Residence in other Member States: A Need for Reform?
| Author | Tomislav Sokol |
| DOI | 10.1177/138826271601800403 |
| Published date | 01 December 2016 |
| Date | 01 December 2016 |
| Published By | Sage Publications, Inc. |
380 Intersentia
COMPREHENSIVE SICKNESS INSURANCE
AS A CONDITION FOR EU CITIZENS’
RESIDENCE IN OTHER MEMBER STATES:
A NEED FOR REFORM?
T S *
Abstract
Free movement of persons is one of the f undamental freedoms of European integration.
It is protected by EU primary law, especial ly by the TFEU and its provisions on citizen’s
rights and free movement of workers within the Union. e described freedom is not
absolute, however. One of the crucial limitations consists of the economically non-
active EU citizens and their family members having to obtain comprehensive sickness
insurance cover in the host Member States in order to enjoy the right of residence for
more than three months in those states.
e aim of the paper is to analyse the legal framework of the UK, Ireland, Slovenia
and Croatia and their implementation of the EU Residence Directive’s comprehensive
sickness insurance condition for the right of residence in EU Member States and
determine whether certain changes to the Residence Directive are needed in order to
obtain a clearer regulation of EU citizens’ rights in cross- border situations. e analysis
has shown that the national autonomy may result in variou s interpretations, depending
on the type of the social secur ity health system the country in question employs . Di erent
interpretations have highlighted the need for a clearer EU-level regulation, to increase
clarity and legal cert ainty for migrants.
Keywords: comprehensive sickness insurance; Croatia; Ireland; residence; Slovenia;
UK
1. INTRODUCTION
e free movement of persons is one of the funda mental freedoms on which European
integration is based. It is protected by EU primary law, especially t he Treaty on the
* Dr Tomislav Sokol is Senior Lecturer at Zagreb School of Economics and Management. Address:
Čičkovina 24c, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia; phone: 00 385 91 8940 211; email: tsokol@zsem.hr.
Comprehensive Sicknes s Insurance as a Cond ition for EU Citizens’
Residence in Ot her Member States: A Need for Reform?
European Jour nal of Social Sec urity, Volume 18 (2016), No. 4 381
Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), and its provisions on citizens’ rights
and free movement of workers within t he Union. is freedom is not absolute,
however. Since there are great di erences between the di erent Member States in
terms of economic development and social secu rity entitlements,1 the absence of
any limitations concerning cross-border movement could put a signi cant strain on
immigra nt Member States’ budgets and their social assist ance schemes.
In the above context, it is no surprise that there are important limitations
prescribed by secondary EU leg islation (in the form of the Residence Directive)
enacted to consolidate and regu late the rights of EU citizens’ free movement in
concrete terms. ese limitations can be summed up as conditioning economically
inactive EU citizens’ (including self-su cient persons who are neither i n employment
nor self-employed, students, persons in vocationa l training and t heir family members)
right of residence (for more than three months) in other Member States by ensuring
that those persons are, w ith some exceptions, not a burden on the social assistance
systems of these Members States. In addition, these persons are required to obtain
comprehensive sickness insurance cover in the host Member State in order to enjoy
the right of residence in another state for longer than three months. Not becoming
a burden on the social assistance system of the host Member State a nd having
comprehensive sickness insurance a re conditions for acqui ring permanent residence
for an inactive non-EEA fami ly member of a Union citizen in the event of death, or the
Union citizen’s departure from the host Member State. Fina lly, not becoming a burden
on the social assistance system of the host Member State and having comprehensive
sickness insura nce are conditions for an inactive non-EEA fami ly member of a Union
citizen acquir ing permanent residence in the case of divorce, annul ment of marr iage
or termination of a registered par tnership. e Residence Directive does not determ ine
which country’s comprehensive insuranc e cover the person in question must have (i.e.
which country pays for it) and whether a n entitlement to socially covered health care
according to the law of any of the Member States i n question ful ls the Directive’s
condition.2
1 See TFEU Art s. 20–21, 45. See also, for ex ample, Directorat e-General for Int ernal Policies, ‘ e
impact of the crisis on fundamental rights across Member States of the EU Comparative analysis’
(2015) an d EUROSTAT (2 015), GDP per capita in PPS. Retrie ved June 2016 from http://ec.europa.
eu/eurostat/tgm/table.do?tab=tableandinit=1andlanguage=enandpcode=tec00114andplugin=1.
2 See Directi ve 2004/38/EC of the Europea n Parliament and of the Counci l of 29April 2004 on the
right of citiz ens of the Union and thei r family member s to move and reside freely w ithin the ter ritory
of the Member States a mending Regulation (EEC) No. 1612/68 and repea ling Directives 64/221/
EEC, 68/360/EEC, 72/194/EEC, 73/148/EEC, 75/34/EEC, 75/35/EEC, 90/364/EEC, 90/365/EEC and
93/96/EEC [2004] OJ L158/77, as amended (Reside nce Directive) Arts. 7, 12, 13. On the c itizenship
and the Residence Di rective see, inter alia, Car rera (2005: 701, 716); Elmore and Starup (2007: 75);
Hailbronner (200 5: 1259, 1262); Jacobs (2007: 596); Kostakopou lou (2007: 634–636); Kosta kopoulou
(2008: 292); Pennings (2012: 323); Van Overmeiren, Eic henhofer and Verschueren (2011: 45–46).
e aforementioned liter ature referred to above does not t ackle the issue of comprehe nsive sickness
insurance a s a condition for the right of re sidence in detail (alt hough it does mention it, as re ferred),
and this was w as one reason for writing t his paper.
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