Access of non-EU nationals to the labour market of EU Member States is based on selection matching skills needs. EU nationals have a right under EU law to reside in other EU Member States on condition that they either are student or economically active, or do have ‘sufficient resources’. This chapter examines whether the differences in framework are also visible on the ground. It looks at the changing practice of monitoring ‘sufficient resources’. During the economic crisis, several Member States increased the threshold for ‘sufficient resources’ and introduced stricter enforcement of the financial conditions. At the same time, the percentage of flexible and temporary labour contracts on the labour market increased, making it harder to fulfil these financial conditions. This chapter analyses how the combination of stricter rules, economic crisis, and flexible contracts may impact on termination of residence of, presumably, less wealthy EU citizens. It argues that the distinction made at EU level between intra-EU mobility and labour migration from outside the EU is not an appropriate starting point to look at the complexities of movement of workers in and to the EU.

This chapter introduces the reader to the book. It first describes the overall purpose of the book that brings together eighteen chapters that use money as a lens to address a wide range of cases from different disciplinary perspectives. Taken together its chapters balance empirical and theoretical work and use multiple methods. While the book does not force an overarching theoretical framework, it aims to facilitate overarching engagement and to encourage new multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research into the role of money and resources on migration. Secondly, the chapter describes how aims, actors, and instruments are three important elements of analysis that return implicitly or explicitly in the individual chapters. It gives examples of how the lens of money can bring new insights to each of these elements in blurring formal distinctions. Thirdly, the chapter introduces the three parts of the book: migration, participation, and citizenship. It explains the choice for these three parts and how and why the distinct chapters connect under each part.

The Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ) should enable citizens to travel, work and live anywhere in the EU safely and protected by the rule of law. This chapter discusses that claim by highlighting the interaction between free movement and non-discrimination rights of EU citizens on the one hand and specific AFSJ measures on immigration and criminal and civil matters on the other. It shows that the law has not evolved unidirectionally and that the interpretation of the objective of the AFSJ is unpredictable. At times, the law goes in the opposite direction to fostering free movement and is not in line with the fundamental nature of both EU citizenship and free movement rights.