change skrev:(1) Directive 2004/38/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2004 on the right of citizens of the Union and their family members to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States does not apply directly to EU citizens returning to their Member State of nationality. However, the Member State of nationality may not give such EU citizens less favourable treatment than that owed to them as a matter of EU law in the Member State from which they moved to their Member State of nationality. As a result, Directive 2004/38 indirectly sets out the minimum standard of treatment that a returning EU citizen and his family members must enjoy in the EU citizen’s Member State of nationality.
This just line up, how it has already been since Akrich in 1992. Nothing new here.
change skrev:EU law does not require an EU citizen to have resided for any minimum period of time in another Member State in order for his third country national family members to claim a derived right of residence in the Member State of nationality to which the EU citizen then returns.
An EU citizen exercises his right of residence in another Member State if he makes that Member State the place where the habitual centre of his interests lies. Provided that, when all relevant facts are taken into account, that test is satisfied, it is irrelevant in this context whether that EU citizen keeps another form of residence elsewhere or whether his physical presence in the Member State of residence is regularly or irregularly interrupted.
This is all pretty much in line with present danish interpretation in my opinion. After this clarification there might be a slightly increased room though for people living far away from a border to keep a second residence in Denmark and sleep there even for 4 nights (Monday to Friday) during a working week. Until now we have adviced people to not sleep at such a second residence for more than a maximum of 3 nights pr. week.
change skrev:Where time elapses between the return of the EU citizen to the Member State of which he is a national and the arrival of the third country national family member in that Member State, the family member’s entitlement to a derived right of residence in that Member State does not lapse provided that the decision to join the EU citizen is taken in the exercise of their right to a family life.
This will lead to changes in the current danish interpretation. But it is hardly an earthshakingly important one, because most cupples already move together anyway. And there is already some room to let the foreign spouse move later, if there is a special reason for this like a work contract, which must first be finished.
change skrev:Where an EU citizen residing in his Member State of nationality exercises rights of free movement in connection with his employment, the right of his third country national family members to reside in that State depends on the closeness of their family connection with the EU citizen and on the causal connection between the family’s place of residence and the EU citizen’s exercise of rights of free movement. In particular, the family member must enjoy a right of residence if denying that right would cause the EU citizen to seek alternative employment that would not involve the exercise of rights of free movement or would cause him to move to another Member State. It is irrelevant in that regard whether the EU citizen is a frontier worker or exercises his right of free movement in order to fulfil his contract of employment concluded with an employer based in his Member State of nationality and residence.
This is by far the part, which will have the most far reaching consequences in Denmark. This is because the danish interpretation of the Carpenter case has been very narrow to the point of making it almost irrelevant. I am not sure even a single EU residence card has ever been issued in Denmark according to the principles in the Carpenter case. And this despite the fact it is now 11 years old (from 2002).
If the EU-court follows this though, then a lot of people carrying out work in another EU-country will be able to claim EU residence right for their spouse on the grounds, that if this is denied, they will see themselfes forced to move to another member country eg. the one, where they already carry out work.
This is likely to be politically controversial here and will be yet another hole in the socalled “solid and just” (robust og retfærdig) danish immigration policy. Which government bureaucrats is therefore also likely to go to lengths to find a way to “plug”, if they possibly can, by some other strange and odd misinterpretation of the ruling.
This is my governments 
face now! 
