Taking a Logical or Giant Step Forward? Comment on Ibrahim and Teixeira

The Ibrahimand Teixeira cases concern the rights that members of an EU worker' s family enjoy in another Member State. The Court' s rulings, delivered on the same day, focus on residency and educational rights for children of former migrant workers in the host state, and the derived residency rights for their primary carers. Case law has interpreted Regulation 1612/68 to mean that in circumstances where the migrant worker is no longer working in the host state, the child retains a free-standing right to education there and his/her primary carer derives a right of residence from the child, regardless of the carer' s nationality. The principal novelty of the Ibrahim and Teixeira rulings is to isolate this interpretation from the apparent effects of Directive 2004/38, meaning that residence rights are conferred on economic migrants and their families regardless of whether the family subsequently becomes a burden on the social assistance system of the host state. Such a conclusion could have serious ramifications. In light of the new permanent residence provisions beginning to take practical effect across the Union, this article assesses the rulings
and the extent to which the outcomes can be applied to economically inactive EU citizens with children in another Member State' s education system.