The Lamassoure report on a citizens' Europe, submitted on June 25

(B2) UMP MEP, Alain Lamassoure, is due to submit his report on "the citizen and the application of Community law" to Nicolas Sarkozy on June 25. A report which should launch the signal of an offensive of the French presidency of the EU for more concrete results.

(This site will publish the report as soon as it is officially delivered to Nicolas Sarkozy, around 13:00 p.m.)

The report identifies four themes where the problems encountered by Europeans are concentrated: social security, the equivalence of diplomas, the portability of pensions, family consequences (divorce, childcare, alimony, etc.). Sometimes it is a legal vacuum, sometimes the legislation exists or is not applied, or the citizen is misinformed.

More generally, one observation emerges: the current Community system is still based on an old pattern the free movement of people, which would concern only a few well-defined categories, and where a citizen would migrate to work or study in a country, settle there permanently or return to his country of origin. However, today, effect of the liberation of borders, everyone circulates and for different reasons. As a result, the situations are much “diversified” and more complex. A person can settle in one country, marry a citizen of another Member State, then migrate to a third country, and go to retire in a fourth... Result: multiple problems: between the child who finds himself without nationality – because the national laws are opposed – or the person who finds himself with two or three tax authorities on his back, the simple citizen has difficulty getting out of it. Other questions arise for the qualification of diplomas: students who go on “Erasmus” do not always see the semesters spent abroad validated for their university course. Besides these legal loopholes, bad transposition or bad application of Community law causes certain problems. There is also the question of
information. The citizen quite simply sometimes has difficulty in knowing his rights, and where to turn. Among the various recommendations and proposals made by Alain Lamassoure is therefore the strengthening of this information for citizens.