However, the EU's Free Movement Directive provides sufficient safeguards to ensure that citizens’ exercise of their right to free movement does not disproportionately burden a Member State's budget.

This is why the Commission is taking a firm stance to tackle problems with Member States’ transposition of the EU's Free Movement Directive of 2004 (2004/38/EC) so that European citizens fully benefit from their rights.

The European Commission is strongly committed to the effective enforcement of the EU free movement rules in all Member States.

Europeans take advantage of their free movement rights every day: they make around 1.25 billion journeys as tourists within the EU every year.

Iceland remains largely in line and applies a substantial part of the acquis in the fields covered by the EEA, such as free movement of goods, freedom of movement of workers, the right of establishment and freedom to provide services, free movement of capital, public procurement, company law, intellectual property law, competition, financial services and information society and media.

This Communication follows and complements previous reports and texts related to free movement, such as the Commission's 1990 Communication on Frontier Workers [5], the Report of the High Level Panel on the free movement of persons (the "Veil Report") of 1997, the Commission's Action Plan for Free Movement of Workers [6], the Resolution of the Council and the Member States concerning an action plan for mobility [7], the Recommendation of the European Parliament and of the Council on Mobility [8], Commission Communication on a mobility Strategy for the European Research Area [9], the Communication on New European Labour Markets [10] and t ...[+++]he Commission's Action Plan for Skills and Mobility [11].