Search
Contact
Login
Share this article
IMPACT – MEDIUM
What is the change? The European Union’s Court of Justice has rejected Germany’s requirement that spouses of Turkish nationals demonstrate language proficiency.
What does the change mean? The German language regulation violates the standstill clause of the Ankara Agreement between the EU and Turkey because it makes family unification and establishment more difficult and “goes beyond what is necessary” to obtain its objective.
Background: The case was brought by Naime Dogan, a Turkish national who applied to join her husband, a Turkish national working and residing in Germany. The German Embassy denied her family reunification visa petition on the grounds that she did not demonstrate basic knowledge of the German language. Since 2007 Germany has imposed the language requirement on certain non-EU spouses to promote integration and curb forced marriages and marriage fraud.
But EU’s highest court said in a July 10 ruling that the requirement violates the Ankara Agreement’s standstill clause, which generally prohibits EU countries from introducing new restrictions on Turkish nationals. The Agreement, which Germany joined in 1973, established the framework for an association between the European Economic Community and Turkey.
The court said the language requirement unnecessarily “makes family reunification difficult or impossible” for Turkish workers, effectively forcing them to choose between a job in the EU and their family in Turkey.
BAL Analysis: Because the court decided the case based on the Ankara Agreement, it did not reach another argument put forth by Dogan that the linguistic requirement also violates EU Council Directive 2003/86/EC on the right to family reunification of third-country nationals. However, the court ruling may lead to challenges under that directive to similar language restrictions across the EU.
This alert has been provided by the BAL Global Practice group in the United Kingdom. For additional information, please contact uk@bal.com.
Copyright © 2016 Berry Appleman & Leiden LLP. All rights reserved. Reprinting or digital redistribution to the public is permitted only with the express written permission of Berry Appleman & Leiden LLP. For inquiries please contact copyright@bal.com.
The U.S. Department of Labor has posted updated processing times for permanent labor certification (PERM) applications. PERM Processing: As…
Immigrant visa issuance continued to climb in fiscal year 2023, surpassing pre-pandemic totals, according to recently published State…
EU member states’ ambassadors have agreed on a draft regulation that would let the EU suspend visa-free travel for countries…
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced this week that it will implement a streamlined process to provide Employment…