Cross-border mobility and the permanence of personal status in the European Union.

One of the principal effects of the European integration is the right to freely move across state borders, in a degree that is unprecedented in modern history. This right is vested into every European Union (EU) citizen by Article 21 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. However, free movement is more than a right to cross the borders and live abroad. Life abroad means a life under a foreign legal system. One of the most glaring problems of living abroad relates to the permanence of the position of a natural person in the legal order, in other words, his/her personal status. Each Member State preserves its own private law. For this reason, some Member States have the institute of partnership, others know only marriage; some may recognize a third-gender, most do not. In this panoply of legal regimes, a person, having acquired a certain personal status in one Member State may find that the status is recognized in a few Member States, but not in others. Such a state-of-affairs demotivates people to use the rights of free movement and prevents closer integration of EU citizens. Hence, the study of what is and can be the role of EU law in ensuring the permanence of personal status of EU citizens, so that EU citizens who decide to live abroad preserve their personal status, which is important for scientific and societal reasons, constitutes the main subject of the Project.

Keywords:EUROPEAN CITIZENSHIP

Disciplines:Comparative law, European law, International law, International private law, International trade law