ANYONE who has been affected by measures by an EU-member state that restrict their right to free movement within the European Union can turn to the courts in the country that adopted the measures, but the European Commission has no right to intervene, a spokesman for Jacques Barrot, the EU Commissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security, said on November 9, as reported by the TASR newswire.
Barrot’s spokesman Michele Cercone gave the statement in response to Hungarian MEP Kinga Gál, who had asked for an explanation over the case of Hungarian President László Sólyom, who was denied entry to Slovakia by the Slovak authorities in August, ostensibly on public security grounds. Sólyom was supposed to take part in the unveiling of a statue of Hungary’s King Stephen I in the Slovak town of Komárno.
Cercone added that EU member countries are allowed to adopt decisions that restrict the free movement of EU citizens when public security, public health and public policy are concerned. He said that such measures should be ‘appropriate’, but added that it was for the national courts of the enforcing state to decide if the enforced measures were in fact appropriate.
