New guidelines will reduce fake marriages, Brussels says

ANDREW WILLIS

03.07.2009 @ 09:05 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – Governments may not hinder citizens' rights to move freely in the European Union when investigating possible fake marriages between EU and non-EU citizens, new guidelines published by the European Commission on Thursday (2 July) say.

The rules were put forward following complaints by Denmark and Ireland, concerned that that the current directive covering the rights of EU citizens and their families to move to another member state does not prevent scam marriages between EU citizens and individuals from outside the union looking to gain residency.

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"These guidelines should provide solutions to a number of problems without calling into question the freedom of movement and freedom to reside in another member state than one's own," said justice commissioner Jacques Barrot.

Danish concerns stem from the landmark Metock case ruling last year in which the European Court of Justice overruled an Irish government decision to deny four asylum seekers, married to EU nationals, residency.

Ireland argued that it should be allowed to deport the four non-EU spouses to prevent future marriages of convenience, on the grounds they had not been legally resident in another EU state before arriving in Ireland.

However the ECJ said prior residency was not a valid criterion, leaving much of Denmark's immigration legislation no longer valid.

In addressing member state concerns surrounding marriages of convenience, Mr Barrot said member states were entitled to check that marriages to non-EU citizens were not merely to gain residency by examining aspects such as the length of the marriage and whether the couple had shared financial commitments.

But he said: "the checks should be individual and targeted. There should not be any general measure."

A number of EU states have reported cases of EU citizens accepting money in exchange for marrying non-EU citizens hoping to gain residency.

Call for legislative amendments

In recent days, a number of Danish politicians have reacted angrily to the draft copies of the commission guidelines.

A spokesman for the ruling Liberal Party, Michal Aastrup Jensen, said the commission's guidelines were "absurd" and that they had clearly been written by people "living a long way from reality down in Brussels," reports the Copenhagen Post.

Danish MEP Morten Messerschmidt, from the anti-immigrant Danish People's Party, called them unacceptable and recommended the government simply ignore them.

However Danish diplomats downplayed this opposition on Thursday, saying their call for amendments to the original legislation still stood but that they welcomed the commission's outline that seemed to address some of the Danish concerns.

Both they and Irish officials said they would now examine the guidelines closely and report back to the commission in September.

Mr Barrot said the commission would continue bilateral discussions with Denmark and other member states but said he believes the commission's ideas would help the Nordic country to combat marriages of convenience.

"We see far more disadvantages than advantages to rewriting this directive," he added.

Italian security package

The Italian senate passed the government's new security package on Thursday, designed to crackdown on certain immigrants and empower associations of citizens to patrol municipalities.

"We will have to examine this text once adopted to verify its compatibility with community law," said Mr Barrot, stressing that the new guidelines do not apply to immigrants who are EU citizens.