Suchergebnisse

Rights of residence derived from a durable relationship with an EU citizen, are left to a relatively wide discretion of the Member States. Pursuant to Article 2.2 (b) Directive 2004/38/EC (“Directive”), “the partner with whom the Union citizen has contracted a registered partnership, on the basis of the legislation of a Member State, if the legislation of the host Member State treats registered partnerships as equivalent to marriage and in accordance with the conditions laid down in the relevant legislation of the host Member State” qualifies as family member. Provided that they have a durable relationship (duly attested) with an EU citizen, pursuant to Article 3.2(b), unregistered partners are as well beneficiaries of the Directive. The durable relationship was expressly excluded from the scope of Article 2(2)(b): “Unlike the amended proposal, it does not cover de facto durable relationships” (EU Commission, Document 52003SC1293). Article 3 (2)(a) covers “other family members” (no restrictions as to the degree of relatedness) if material support is provided by the EU citizen or by his partner or where serious health grounds strictly require the personal care of the family member by the Union citizen. Pursuant to Article 3.2, “other family members” and unregistered partners can attest a durable relationship, must be facilitated entry and residence, in accordance to the host Member State’s national legislation. In the light of Preamble 6 Directive, the situation of the persons who are not included in the definition of family members, must be considered “in order to maintain the unity of the family in a broader sense”. The questions discussed in this paper are the following: (i) are Member States genuinely considering the concept of durable relationship in view of maintaining the unity of the family in a broader sense? and (ii) how to overcome legal uncertainty and which criteria, both at EU and at international level, can be taken into account in order to assess whether a durable relationship is genuine and should be granted the rights set forth by the Directive?

Abstract. Building on almost 10 years of expertise and operational application of the
Combined Drought Indicator (CDI), which is implemented within the European
Commission's European Drought Observatory (EDO) for the purposes of early
warning and monitoring of agricultural droughts in Europe, this paper
proposes a revised version of the index. The CDI conceptualizes drought as a
cascade process, where a precipitation shortage (WATCH stage) develops into
a soil water deficit (WARNING stage), which in turn leads to stress for
vegetation (ALERT stage). The main goal of the revised CDI proposed here is
to improve the indicator's performance for those events that are currently
not reliably represented, without altering either the modelling conceptual
framework or the required input datasets. This is achieved by means of two
main modifications: (a) use of the previously occurring CDI value to improve
the temporal consistency of the time series and (b) introduction of two
temporary classes – namely TEMPORARY RECOVERY for soil moisture and
vegetation greenness, respectively – to avoid brief discontinuities in a
stage. The efficacy of the modifications is tested by comparing the
performances of the revised and currently implemented versions of the
indicator for actual drought events in Europe during the last 20 years. The
revised CDI reliably reproduces the evolution of major droughts,
outperforming the current version of the indicator, especially for
long-lasting events, and reducing the overall temporal inconsistencies in
stage sequencing of about 70 %. Since the revised CDI does not need
supplementary input datasets, it is suitable for operational implementation
within the EDO drought monitoring system.