The treaty on the functioning of the European Union provides certain rights to the Union Citizens. One of the fundamental rights is that of free movement of Union citizens. A citi-zen within the European Union has the right to freely move and reside within the territory of the Member States. Family members of a Union citizen also obtains right to move to a Member State. However, the family members have to fulfil certain conditions in the Resi-dence Directive in order to move to a Member State. The question of what criteria a family member must fulfil has been controversial because the Member States have interpreted the EU-law in different ways. Consequently, through preliminary rulings ECJ has come to dif-ferent conclusions hence the controversy.

The interpretation of the EU-law concerned whether a Member State can impose an addi-tional requirement on a family member of a Union citizen or not. This is what the Member States have different views on. The implication of the requirement was that a family mem-ber must have had a prior lawful residence in a Member State in order to move to another Member State. This is the outcome in one of the cases where an additional requirement set by a Member State was to be considered as compatible with the EU-law. However, this view was to be reviewed in another case, as imposing a requirement was in contrary to the EU-law and to the internal market within the European Union.

It is clear that including an additional requirement is not in compliance within the EU-law. Mainly because the applying an additional requirement is not provided for in the Residence Directive. Additionally, it would restrict family members to move as well as it would hinder Union citizens to lead a normal family life.