"Free movement of persons: granting individual rights or regulating business?"

[From the Introduction]. It is now accepted that there has been convergence in the interpretation by the Court of Justice of the rules applicable to the free movement of goods, to the free movement of persons, and to the free movement of services.(1) The same trend can be seen in the less voluminous case law on the free movement of capital. The convergence of principles is generally, though not universally, seen as a good thing, despite earlier views that the law on the four freedoms might follow different routes. If the perspective from which the area is viewed is the dismantling of protectionist barriers, or the prohibition of discrimination in all its forms, or securing the completion of an internal market, then the logic of convergence is compelling. Jukka Snell has commented: "The building of a coherent and transparent European legal system demands a common approach that is based on generally accepted principles, not on dubious distinction".(2) However, there are practical and legal distinctions between the Treaty rules on the four freedoms which demand more than a monochrome view of the landscape. Let us look at a number of those distinctions