Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Free movement and citizenship of the EU'

The goal of this diploma thesis is to expound the term “labour mobility” within an enlarged European Union, and its consequences on Swedish economy. Fears of a massive wave of working migration proved unfounded at the time of past EU enlargements and thus are not likely to come true during the forthcoming enlargement.

The analysis of the experience stemming from the southern enlargement can be helpful in an attempt to evaluate gains and losses of the CEE countries integration with the EU. The southern enlargement is being often regarded as an example or even basis for the EU eastern enlargement. This approach is not a random one. The analysis of the EU southern enlargement based on the case of Greece, Spain and Portugal reflects the likeness of the current accession conditions: both the southern candidates and the CEE countries aspiring to join in the 2004 are traditionally net emigration countries with considerable lower level of economic development than those of the EU average.

Great differences in income, standard of living and employment opportunities between CEE and EU countries might contribute to a mass-immigration from east to west and might accelerate the current employment crisis in the present EU states. Notably, OECD studies show that migrants form the CEECs tend to be educated, skilled and vital workers. The brain drain problem may be a serious negative side effect for CEECs.

What Sweden, as a current EU member, and Swedish enterprise has to puts a stress on, is an importance to create a growing and flexible labour market. A more flexible labour market in general must be promoted, including making it easier for companies to find people with the right skills.

Swedish labour market, in spite of how inelastic it may be, has a strong demand for low-qualified labour under any level of unemployment. Even if the CEECs migration potential had been fully used, it would never be able to satisfy this demand. Neither disparity in GDP per capita, unemployment, nor other economic differences between the CEE countries and the EU may create grounds for the implementation of the transitional periods. This causality has been many times proved theoretically, empirically and during the previous EU enlargements.

The introduction of the transitional periods may prolong the process of leveling life-levels, technological and economic growth, infrastructure, cultural and social standards within the enlarged EU. It also means sending the political signal to the accession countries, which would be turned into second-class members, deprived of one of the most vital freedoms of the Single Market.

The expansion of European union has posed vital changes in the European community as countries have erased their borders for their eastern neighbours and actively involved themselves in mutual business activity. Free movement of labour and service has taken place,and though some Western countries have posed obstacles for the further integration, the trend is currently occurring. In this paper we will try to take a closer look at the labour and service

movement in Sweden and cover different views from different parties – EU, Swedish tradeunions, business companies that would share their perspectives on the issue.

Double taxation is known as restricting the free flow of capital and accordingly results in a limited access of the internal market. Although, not many Member States have entered into double taxation conventions in order to avoid juridical double taxation of inheritances. The question then arises whether this failure to eliminate juridical double taxation is restricting the free movement of capital. The ECJ‟s case law regarding inheritance taxes are very varying. In its initial case law, the ECJ stated that national measures which reduce the value of the inheritance are in breach of EC law. Even measures which could restrict investors in one Member State from investing in other Member States are considered to be a breach of EC law. The ECJ also stated that discriminating situations could not be justified with the argument that these situations arise due to the co-existence of national tax systems. Given these facts, it seems like juridical double taxation is likely to constitute a breach of EC law. The ECJ has however only concentrated on which effect the national provisions in a single Member State may have and have not given concern to which effect these provisions may have in connection with the tax provisions in other Member States. The author believes that the Court takes this approach because of a respect of the Member States fiscal sovereignty.

This respect also shows in the Block case. In this case the ECJ made it clear that juridical double taxation, caused by the co-existence of national tax systems, is not considered to be a breach of EC law. The ECJ also stated that when the Member States develops their tax systems, due to the lack of harmonised Community rules regarding direct taxation, they are not obliged to adapt to the tax systems of other Member States in order to avoid double taxation. The ECJ also made it clear that the citizens are not guaranteed a neutral tax situation when transferring their place of residence. In this thesis a comparison has also been made to judgements where the ECJ considers economic double taxation to be a breach of EC law. After studying all these cases it seems like the ECJ considers juridical double taxation to be an undesirable restriction of the free flow of capital. But even though the ECJ encourages the Member States to enter into double taxation conventions, there are no consequences when the Member States fail to do this. The difference between cases regarding economic double taxation and juridical double taxation could be that the ECJ considers it to be too far reaching to judge juridical double taxation as a breach of EC law and do not want to regulate how this restriction shall be avoided and thereby take the role of the Community legislator or breach the fiscal sovereignty of the Member States. The author believes that it would be more beneficial for the internal market if juridical double taxation was avoided and that it would not be harmful if the ECJ would give the Member States some incentives for entering into double taxation conventions in order to eliminate or alleviate situations where juridical double taxation occurs.

The free movement of goods constitutes one of the fundamental principles of the European Union and entitles goods entrance to the internal market. Sweden had before 1995 few monopolies concerning the import, export, manufacturing, distribution and retail on alcohol, and had to as a result of entering EU abolish four of these. The monopoly on retail, Systembolaget, was retained, and is still today strictly controlled by limited number of stores as well as restricted openly-hours. Systembolaget contributes an important part of the Swedish Alcohol Policy, which main purpose is to limit the accessibility of alcohol in Sweden. Another essential purpose is to prevent alcohol to reach people under the age of twenty, and this is upheld by strict age-controls when purchasing alcohol from Systembolaget.

Lately it has been argued that the Swedish prohibition of private import of alcohol con-stitutes a restriction of the free movement of goods and in breach of Article 28 EC. The exception of such restriction is presented in Article 30 EC and allows Member States to obtain national trade barriers if a justification based on the protection of the public health could be made. The Commission is of the opinion that the Swedish prohibition constitute such a restriction referred to in Article 28 and is not willing to accept the justification to protection of the public health. The Swedish government however, is reluc-tant to remove the prohibition and argues that consumers that require a certain product can import alcohol through Systembolaget. An elimination of the ban would undermine the core purpose with Systembolaget which is to protect the public health and prevent alcohol to be distributed to people under the age of twenty.

According to the Alcohol Act a person who has turned twenty can legally import alco-hol to Sweden when he is travelling with the goods if those products are for his personal use. A proposal has been presented to a redefinition of private import, which would in-clude situation where the buyer is not personally travelling with the goods, yet the transportation is carried out on the buyer’s behalf. Such purchases are often referred to distance purchase, and in those situations should the excise duty be laid down in the coun-try where the good was released for consumption. In distance sales the seller is respon-sible for the transportation of the goods but also to pay excise duty on the products in the country of destination.

A redefinition of private import to include transportation made on the buyer’s behalf could create problems since there is no actual contract between the seller and the transporting-company. Problems can then arise since the seller has no possibility to control that the buyer is of the legal age or guaranteeing that the alcohol is for that person’s use

Den fria rörligheten av varor utgör en grundstomme inom den Europeiska Unionen, vilken erkänner varor från medlemsstaterna tillträde till den gemensamma marknaden. Sverige hade fram till 1995 fem olika monopol som reglerade importen, exporten, tillverkningen, distributionen och försäljningen av alkohol, men var tvungen som ett led i inträdet till EU att avveckla fyra av dessa. Kvar återstod försäljningsmonopolet, Systembolaget, vilket än idag är strikt reglerat genom begränsat antal butiker och öppet-tider. Systembolaget utgör in viktigt beståndsdel i den svenska alkoholpolitiken, vilken har till syfte att begränsa alkoholen och dess skadeverkningar i Sverige. Ett viktigt mål är också att motverka att alkoholen når ut till ungdomar under 20år, varvid strikta kon-troller av ålder sker vid köp på Systembolaget.

På senare tid har det diskuterat huruvida det svenska förbudet mot privat införsel av alkohol skall anses vara förenligt med den fria rörligheten av varor och den uppställda artikel 28 i EG-fördraget. Där stadgas det att inga importrestriktioner skall hindra varor tillträde till den gemensamma marknaden. Det uppställda undantaget i artikel 30 berättigar medlemsstaterna att behålla en sådan restriktion om det kan anses nödvändigt till skyddet för den allmänna hälsan. Kommission har i ett motiverat yttrande upplyst Sve-rige att förevarande förbud utgör en sådan restriktion som avses i artikel 28 och att förutsättningarna att behålla ett sådant förbud inte kan anses uppfyllda. Den svenska regeringen anser att förbudet fyller en viktig funktion genom att begränsa tillgängligheten av alkoholen på den svenska marknaden, samt upplyser att en konsument som önskar importera särskilda produkter kan göra detta genom Systembolaget. Att tillåta konsumenter att importera fritt skulle försvaga det ursprungliga syftet med Systembolaget, vilket är att skydda den allmänna hälsan och minska risken för att alkohol blir tillgänglig för ungdomar.

Enligt Alkohollagen kan en person som har fyllt 20 fritt importera alkohol till Sverige under förutsättning att denne reser in med varorna till Sverige och att dessa varor är för hans personliga nyttjande. En föreslagen utvidgning av definitionen privat import kan komma att inkludera varutransporter vilka sker för köparens räkning, ofta kallade distans köp. Detta skiljer sig då nämnvärt från distansförsäljning där säljare står för transporten, och är skyldig att betala punktskatt i destinationslandet för dessa varor. Vid distans köp skall ingen beskattning ske i destinationslandet, under förutsättning att dessa avgifter har betalts i varans ursprungsland.

En utvidgning av definition av privat import till att innefatta varutransporter organiserade av köparen kan skapa problem då inget riktigt kontrakt föreligger mellan säljaren och transportbolaget. Svårigheter kan då uppstå för säljarens då denne saknar möjlighet att kontrollera att köparen är av påstådd ålder och att alkoholen är avsedd för dennes personliga konsumtion.

Denna uppsats tar sikte på att utreda om det existerar fri rörlighet inom EU även för aktiebolag, d.v.s. om aktiebolag fritt kan flytta sitt säte mellan olika medlemsstater utan att problem uppstår. Dessutom undersöks vad som gjorts inom EU för att harmonisera reglerna på det bolagsrättsliga området. Slutligen och som huvudsyfte för uppsatsen görs en ansats att försöka ta reda på varför den övernationella bolagsformen europabolag inte blivit någon succé bland svenska företagare sedan den infördes i oktober 2004.

Beträffande den första frågan konstateras att aktiebolag inte har samma fria rörlighet som fysiska personer, trots att EGF föreskriver detta. Anledningen är att medlemsländerna tillämpar olika lagvalsprinciper som i många fall gör det omöjligt för bolag att byta nationalitet utan att först likvideras och sedan omregistreras. Detta har även konstaterats i ett antal rättsfall från EG-domstolen där domstolen ansett att rättsläget inte varit förenligt med EGF och att åtgärder bör vidtas.

Harmoniseringsarbetet på det bolagsrättsliga området inom EU har pågått sedan 1950-talet och har bl.a. bestått i att ta fram ett antal bolagsdirektiv för att uppnå en minimistandard i samtliga medlemsstaters lagstiftning. Det fjortonde och senaste i raden av dessa direktiv ämnar lösa den problematik som i dagsläget finns beträffande bolagsflytt. Direktivet har dock inte antagits ännu och ingen vet heller när eller om detta sker.

Utöver bolagsdirektiv finns tre olika övernationella bolagsformer – europeiska ekonomiska intressegrupperingar, europakooperativ och europabolag – vars syfte är att underlätta företagens samarbete över gränserna. Just europabolaget är något som kommissionen är mycket stolta över trots detta har inte många europabolag registrerats. I Sverige finns i maj 2007 endast fem europabolag registrerade och anledningen till detta tycks vara flera men ett svåröverskådligt regelverk och avsaknaden av en övernationell skattelösning verkar vara de största, åtminstone om man tolkar de svar som ett antal svenska företag lämnade på en konsultation från kommissionen våren 2006.

Mina egna åsikter om europabolag överensstämmer till stor del med de åsikter som finns hos svenska företag och jag skulle gärna se att regleringen om europabolag var mer enhetlig och inte styrs så mycket av nationell rätt, vilket är fallet i dagsläget. Jag är dessutom tämligen övertygad om att mängden europabolag kommer att öka i takt med att SE-förordningen justeras något och fler företag inser europabolagets fördelar.

This essay sets out to investigate if companies are entitled to free movement within the EU and if they without problem can move their residence from country to country. The essay also contains a report on what is done within the EU to harmonize company law. Finally, a study is made to investigate why the European company hasn’t been that successful among companies in Sweden.

Concerning the first question the answer is that companies in practice aren’t entitled to free movmenet even though it’s prescribed in the EC legislation. The reason to this is that the member states apply different principles that make it impossible for companies to move to another state without being liquidated in the first state and re-established in the second state. The EC court of justice has in several rulings stated that this problem has to be taken care of since it’s inconsistent with the EC legislation.

The work with harmonization of the company law within the EU has been going on for about fifty years and has consisted of different directives to reach a minimum standard in all members states. The fourteenth and last of these directives will make it easier for companies to move but no one knows when this directive will be adopted by the EC council.

Besides the directives there also exist three different types of companies that are common within the whole union. These companies are the European Economic Interest Grouping, the European Cooperative Society and the European company. The European company hasn’t been very successful and one reason for that is that the legislation is difficult to understand since it’s different in every member state, at least according to a couple of Swedish companies that participated in a consultation made by the European commission in spring 2006.

My own opinions on the European company are mostly the same as the Swedish companies and I would like to see an even more uniform legislation. I also think that we in a couple of years will see a lot more European companies as time goes by and the cracks in the legislation has been fixed.

The main part of the thesis investigates the ways in which the interrelations between these spatial dimensions of citizenship are reconfigured in a multiplied citizenship-migration nexus under the process of Europeanisation. It first looks at two different notions of territory – a statist one and a networked one – that are visible in the official discourses, yet it highlights the fact that the technologies that are supposed to produce each type of territoriality often converge. Thus I read the politics of Eurostar and the Channel Tunnel project as one that involves competing patterns of territoriality and manifests the dynamics between facilitated and obstructed mobilities at a moving border. However, the permeability of this border is partly enabled by the uneven and ambiguous configurations of Schengenland itself, and draws attention to the excessive forms of mobility that challenge and break with the official formulation of free movement rights. Thus we turn to the intricate relationship between mobility and citizenship in Europe following our dialogical approach: focusing on the rationalities implied in the government of free movement on one hand, and the paths through which to redefine the right to mobility on the other. In the light of Rancière’s reconceptualisation of rights and democracy, I present two examples each employing different strategies to politicise and mobilise mobility: one is through appealing to the universal, the other legitimating the particular. The politics of mobility is also seen as an endeavour of producing alternative spaces against the territorialised state-centric space to which the imagination of citizenship is usually limited. In discussing a possible global ethics, however, I argue that the dynamics between rights and citizenship are not bound to an emancipatory end. While the juridical system of differentiated rights is constantly challenged by those who claim that they have the rights they are denied to, once the ‘achievements’ of rights-claims are re-appropriated in the juridico-political form of citizenship, this form continues to reproduce boundaries and differential inclusions which shall again be contested. A self-critical global ethics therefore should be conscious about the imperfectability of citizenship and the impossibility of community.
Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales
info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

The Latvian building company Laval un Partneri Ltd (Laval) posted Latvian construction workers at the rebuilding of a school in Vaxholm in autumn 2004. Because the company refused to sign a collective agreement with Svenska Byggnadsarbetareförbundet (Byggnads), which is the Swedish trade union for constructions workers, Byggnads put the construction site under a boycott. Next Laval sued Byggnads for damages in the Swedish Labour Court (AD) because Laval considers the boycott as well as Byggnad´s demand that Laval signs a collective agreement incompatible with EC Law. AD has now demanded a preliminary ruling from the European Court of Justice (ECJ). While waiting for the preliminary ruling from the ECJ, several important questions of principle stand unanswered. Two such questions are whether Lex Britannia and the way in which Sweden har implemented the directive for posted workers (96/71/EC) are compatible with EC Law. In this thesis the author seeks to answer these two questions.

Det lettiska byggbolaget Laval un Partneri Ltd (Laval) utstationerade under hösten 2004 lettiska byggarbetare på ett skolbygge i Vaxholm. Eftersom bolaget vägrade teckna kollektivavtal med Svenska Byggnadsarbetareförbundet (Byggnads) satte Byggnads bygget i blockad. Laval stämde därefter Byggnads i Arbetsdomstolen (AD) och krävde skadestånd eftersom Laval anser att blockaden, liksom Byggnads krav på att Laval skulle teckna kollektivavtal, strider mot EG-rätten. AD har nu begärt ett förhandsavgörande i målet från EG-domstolen. I avvaktan på EG-domstolens avgörande står flera principiellt viktiga frågor i målet obesvarade. Dessa är bl a huruvida Lex Britannia och Sveriges sätt att implementera utstationeringsdirektivet (96/71/EG) är förenliga med EG-rätten. Det är dessa frågor som författaren ämnar besvara i uppsatsen.