This study draws on the two Reports on Cyprus for 2007 and 2008-2009 conducted by the author as a national expert for the Network of Experts on Free Movement of Workers. Since the enactment of Law 7(1)/2007, which purported to transpose Directive 2004/38, there is a clearer view as to the effects the new legislation and the practices relating to transposition. The study examines the situation, the obstacles and challenges for free movement of workers in Cyprus. It illustrates the five key problematic areas and challenges ahead: there are currently 138,000 non-Cypriots legally residing in the areas under the control of the Republic of Cyprus, out of whom over 70,000 EU citizens. The system is working but there are issues to be dealt with such as: the considerable backlogs in the applications; problems with working conditions and pay; problems of reverse discrimination resulting from the operation of the directive, as EU citizens who exercise their rights under the directive can benefit but these rights are not always for Cypriots and their families; the discrimination against lesbian and gay persons resulting from the from the failure to regulate same-sex marriages and registered relations in Cyprus; the problems generated from the territorial application of the implementation of the Directive given the de facto division of Cyprus and the Green Line Regulation.
The publication also includes a paper by Kees Groenendijk, Equal Treatment of Workers Under EC Law and the Synthesis Report of the Network of Experts for 2007, entitled European Report on Free Movement of Workers in Europe in 2007, which compares law and practice across the European Union by the rapporteurs of the network Professors Kees Groenendijk, Roel Fernhout, Elspeth Guild, Pieter Boeles, Ryszard Cholewinski and Paul Minderhoud.
The report is sponsored by the Network of Experts on Free Movement of Workers and the University of Nicosia.
