Erdem Deha Altiner and Isabel Hanna Ravn v Udlændingestyrelsen.
Date: 2018-06-27
22


According to settled case-law, questions on the interpretation of EU law referred by a national court in the factual and legislative context which that court is responsible for defining, and the accuracy of which is not a matter for the Court to determine, enjoy a presumption of relevance. The Court may refuse to rule on a question referred by a national court only where it is quite obvious that the interpretation of EU law that is sought is unrelated to the actual facts of the main action or its object, where the problem is hypothetical, or where the Court does not have before it the factual or legal material necessary to give a useful answer to the questions submitted to it (see, in particular, judgment of 6 September 2016, Petruhhin, C‑182/15, EU:C:2016:630, paragraphs 19 and 20).
26


In that regard, it should be recalled, at the outset, that the Court has held that, where during the genuine residence of a Union citizen in a Member State other than the Member State of which he is a national, pursuant to and in conformity with the conditions set out in Article 7(1) and (2) of Directive 2004/38, family life is created or strengthened in that Member State, the effectiveness of the rights conferred on the Union citizen by Article 21(1) TFEU requires that the citizen’s family life in the host Member State may continue on returning to the Member of State of which he is a national, through the grant of a derived right of residence to the family member who is a third-country national. If no such derived right of residence were granted, that Union citizen could be discouraged from leaving the Member State of which he is a national in order to exercise his right of residence under Article 21(1) TFEU in another Member State because he is uncertain whether he will be able to continue in his Member State of origin a family life with his immediate family members which has been created or strengthened in the host Member State (judgments of 12 March 2014, O. and B., C‑456/12, EU:C:2014:135, paragraph 54, and of 5 June 2018, Coman and Others, C‑673/16
EU:C:2018:385, paragraph 24).
27


Moreover, it the clear from the case-law that the conditions for granting, when a Union citizen returns to the Member State of which he is a national, a derived right of residence, based on Article 21(1) TFEU, to a third-country national who is a family member of that Union citizen with whom that citizen has resided, solely by virtue of his being a Union citizen, in the host Member State, should not, in principle, be more strict than those provided for by Directive 2004/38 for the grant of such a right of residence to a third-country national who is a family member of a Union citizen in a case where that citizen has exercised his right of freedom of movement by becoming established in a Member State other than the Member State of which he is a national. Even though Directive 2004/38 does not cover such a return, it should be applied by analogy to the conditions for the residence of a Union citizen in a Member State other than that of which he is a national, given that in both cases it is the Union citizen who is the sponsor for the grant of a derived right of residence to a third-country national who is a member of his family (judgment of 12 March 2014, O. and B., C‑456/12, EU:C:2014:135, paragraph 50).
30


However, it must be noted that any right of residence in an EU Member State of a third-country national derives from the exercise of freedom of movement by a Union citizen (see, to that effect, judgment of 12 March 2014, O. and B., C‑456/12, EU:C:2014:135, paragraph 36 and the case-law cited).