EU: The rights of European Union citizens to live anywhere within the territory of the 25 nations are to be strengthened by a law approved by the European Parliament yesterday.
The law will also give strengthened rights to non-EU nationals who are married to an EU citizen. Those rights will be preserved in the event of the death or divorce of the EU citizen. The law will also give rights to gay or lesbian partners of EU citizens, though to a lesser extent.
The European Commissioner for Justice and Home Affairs, Mr Antonio Vitorino, said: "The new directive has the potential to make an enormous difference for the good of the five million Union citizens who currently reside abroad and the many more who will want to do so in the future." But he said he did not believe that there would be massive population movements from the countries joining the EU into the existing EU states.
Mr Vitorino said that the new law would render the EU's right of free movement more transparent and easier to apply, both for citizens and administrations.
Under the new law, someone who lives in an EU state other than their own will acquire a permanent right of residence after five years of uninterrupted residence.
It is also automatic for a partner "with whom the citizen has contracted a registered partnership on the basis of legislation of a member-state", but only if the country to which the couple move recognises this partnership as equivalent to marriage.
So the non-EU partner who had registered a gay partnership with an EU citizen in Denmark would have automatic rights of residence if he and his partner moved to Belgium or the Netherlands, which permit marriage between gays.
But he would not have automatic rights in Ireland, which does not recognise registered partnerships between gays.
An Irish Government spokeswoman said: "Irish family law is not changed by the directive."