As a result of the enlargement of the European Union (EU), the number of migrants from
Eastern and Central European countries has expanded in the “old” Member States, after
which some politicians and political parties have started to question the rationale of free
movement. This article tackles this topical subject by analysing the moral aspects of the
right to free movement, which is a fundamental right in the European Union. A new
framework for analysing moral stances will be introduced, which makes it possible to
analyze moral perspectives on a broader scale instead of focusing on single
juxtapositions. As an illustrative example of the use of the framework, the attitudes
toward free movement of three European Commissioners and United Kingdom (UK)
Prime Ministers Gordon Brown and David Cameron will be presented in the timescale of
2007 to 2014. The UK did not establish any transitional restrictions for the new EU
Member States that joined in 2004, but the number of migrants was larger than expected.
Recently, Prime Minister David Cameron has presented measures to decrease the number
of EU migrants. It will be argued that free movement is consistently justified by the
Commissioners, while the British rhetoric is based more on the “us/them-division”.</p
