Lecture Course on Free Movement and EU Citizenship

All students at the Faculty of Law, including exchange students, are invited to the lecture course 10-01-512 Freedom of Movement and EU Citizenship that will take place in the summer semester of 2026. The course description, learning outcomes, and registration details are below.

Course Description

More than 400 million people in Europe are EU citizens. This legal status is firmly established in the Treaties and confers upon its holders a number of rights. Introduced in the Maastricht Treaty, the legal concept of Union citizenship plays a key role in the EU democracy and is now one of the cornerstone categories in Union law. More than 10 million EU citizens exercise their right to free movement every year, some of them coming with third-country nationals whose situation also falls within the reach of EU law. Freedom of movement is, however, not unconditional and comes with an array of requirements and exceptions. All these make free movement and EU citizenship an intricate area of EU law that this lecture course covers.

The participants will be guided through the legal rules on free movement and EU citizenship. The course provides an introduction and historical overview of both concepts, embedding these into the wider picture of EU law. The course covers EU citizenship as a legal status, focusing on its content, legal significance and how it interacts with the nationalities of the Member States. Another portion of the course focuses on free movement, breaking it down into three levels of residence and covering such issues as beneficiaries, social assistance, equal treatment, exceptions and restrictions. The course also reserves ample room for the discussion of recent developments in this continuously evolving and changing area of EU law.

Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of the course, the participants will be able to

  • understand the concepts of EU citizenship and free movement
  • explain the role and practical significance of the Union citizenship status
  • demonstrate knowledge of the rights associated with EU citizenship
  • apply the rules on the free movement of persons in the EU
  • analyse the ongoing developments in the domain of EU citizenship and freedom of movement

Registration

Feel free to register for this lecture course on STiNE (course number 10-01-512). If you cannot register on STiNE, just send an email with your name, surname, and matriculation number to the course instructor (see below).

Instructor

Dr. Serhii Lashyn, LL.M – Postdoctoral Fellow at the Faculty of Law of the University of Hamburg. Email: serhii.lashyn@uni-hamburg.de