The Child’s Best Interests as a Gap Filler and Expander of EU Law in Internal Situations

Abstract

The concept of the child’s best interests is recognised in a number of EU legal and policy documents However, its exact legal nature in EU law remains uncertain. Is it a general principle of EU law, a ‘mere’ legal principle, an ’ordinary’ EU rule granting a fundamental right, or something else? This chapter sets out to demonstrate that there are strong arguments suggesting that the concept of the child’s best interests can be viewed as a (constituent part of a) general principle of EU law. This has an interpretative and gap-filling function, which has enabled the evolution of EU law and its expansion to a new category of internal situations, which previously used to be outside the scope of EU law.

Keywords: best interests of the child, general principle of EU law, family reunification, EU citizenship