People with EU residency permits have the right to stay outside the EU for a longer period of time – without losing their long-term residency permit. The European Court of Justice announced this judgment on Thursday.
The European Court of Justice in Luxembourg strengthened the rights of people with EU residence permits on Thursday.
(dpa) According to a ruling by the European Court of Justice, people with a “residence permit” in the EU do not lose this status even if they have only spent a few days there in the previous year. Those affected have already proven that they have roots in an EU country before being granted the status, the judges of the EU’s highest court found in Luxembourg on Thursday (Case C-432/20).
Therefore, people like EU citizens should have the right to stay outside the EU for a longer period of time – without losing their long-term residence permit. However, they may not be completely absent for twelve consecutive months. According to the judges, this interpretation of the EU rules in question also leads to appropriate legal certainty for those affected.
The background to the judgment is a case from Austria. The governor of Vienna had rejected a Kazakh’s application for an extension of his residence permit because he had previously only been in the EU for a few days a year. The Kazakh, on the other hand, complained to the Vienna Administrative Court. This is why the ECJ wanted to know how the corresponding EU rules are to be interpreted. It states that a long-term resident will lose their status if they have not resided in the EU for 12 consecutive months.