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EU membership has profound implications for all parts of a country’s economy,
as well as for its relationships with the other countries in Europe and its internal
political structures. Members of the EU must be democracies governed by the rule
of law and which guarantee human rights. They must have functioning market
economies able to withstand the competitive pressures that EU membership brings,
and governmental structures capable of discharging the wide range of obligations
imposed on EU Member States. Countries joining the EU are obliged to adopt a
wide range of laws in order to harmonize their legal structures with those of the
EU.
This note is concerned with only one limited aspect of entry into the EU,
namely, the impact on land tenure. The EU is a single market in which citizens
and companies in any Member State are free to work, invest or set up businesses
in any other Member State. No Member State, therefore, may place discriminatory
restrictions either on where its citizens and companies are permitted to invest or on
the investments made in it by citizens or companies from elsewhere in the EU. Such
restrictions can also impede the free mobility of workers and businesses. Therefore,
membership of the EU is not compatible with discriminatory constitutional or
other restrictions on the assets that can be owned by foreigners from elsewhere in
the EU.
