The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) establishes, in the judgment of January 22, 2022, that in order to maintain long-term residence, it is sufficient to be in community territory for only a few days within a period of twelve months. in a row.
The Court interprets article 9, section 1, letter c), of Directive 2003/109/CE of the Council, of November 25, 2003, as a result of a query made by a person for the loss of his right to the status of long-term resident in Austria, is that the President of the Government of the Federal State of Vienna considered that during this period he should be considered “absent” because he only resided a few days a year over a period of 5 years.
Absence
The CJEU does not share this thesis. In his understanding, he highlights that the Directive does not contain any reference to the Law of the Member States, so the concept of "absence" must be understood as an autonomous concept of Union Law and must be interpreted uniformly throughout the territory of this Union. , irrespective of the ratings used in the Member States.
In this sense, the magistrates explain, as it appears in said European regulations and in accordance with the usual meaning of the term in current language, "absence" means the physical "lack of presence" of the long-term resident in question in the territory. of the Union, so that any physical presence of the interested party in that territory can interrupt such absence
The resolution recalls that one of the purposes of the Directive is to prevent the loss of the right to long-term resident status, so it is enough for the long-term national resident to be present, within the period of 12 consecutive months that follow the beginning of their absence, in the territory of the Union, even if such presence does not exceed a few days.
For this reason, the European Court concludes that if the Directive does not express a certain time or a certain stabilization as the correspondence to which it has habitual residence or its center of interests in said territory, it cannot be required, as in the case the Austrian Government, that there was an “effective and authentic link”, nor that the interested party has, in the Member State in question, members of his family or assets.
