free movement

noun · Grundfreiheiten

Which German term depends on what moves. The market freedoms together are the Grundfreiheiten; free movement of persons is Freizügigkeit; goods, services and capital each have their own name. And Grundfreiheiten are not Grundrechte.

Which translation, when

Grundfreiheitenthe collective term for the market freedoms of Art. 26 TFEU, and the specific one sets the German word: freier Warenverkehr for goods, Art. 34, Dienstleistungsfreiheit for services, Art. 56, Kapitalverkehrsfreiheit for capital, Art. 63.

Freizügigkeitthe persons branch: free movement of Union citizens, Art. 21, and of workers, Art. 45, so Freizügigkeit renders free movement of persons but not of goods or capital, and using it for everything is too narrow.

nicht Grundrechtethe false friend to avoid: the Grundfreiheiten are the economic market freedoms, distinct from the Grundrechte, the fundamental rights, even though both are tested through scope, interference and justification.

Why

Free movement has no single German word, because the term splits by what is moving. The market freedoms of the internal market, Art. 26 TFEU, are together the Grundfreiheiten, and each has its own name: freier Warenverkehr for goods, Art. 34, the free movement of persons, Dienstleistungsfreiheit for services, Art. 56, and Kapitalverkehrsfreiheit for capital, Art. 63. For persons the word is Freizügigkeit, covering Union citizens, Art. 21, and workers, Art. 45, with establishment, Niederlassungsfreiheit, Art. 49, alongside. The first trap is to render free movement everywhere as Freizügigkeit, which fits persons but not goods, services or capital. The second is to confuse Grundfreiheiten with Grundrechte: the market freedoms are economic rights of the internal market that an individual can invoke, examined like a fundamental right through scope, interference and justification, but they are not the Grundrechte themselves. So free movement is Grundfreiheiten as an umbrella and Freizügigkeit for persons, and the translation has to pick by what moves rather than reach for one word.

Typical mistakes

Freizügigkeit is specifically free movement of persons, Art. 21 and Art. 45 TFEU, so using it for goods, services or capital is too narrow; those are freier Warenverkehr, Dienstleistungsfreiheit and Kapitalverkehrsfreiheit.
Grundfreiheiten, the market freedoms, are not Grundrechte, the fundamental rights, so treating the two as the same word confuses economic freedoms with constitutional rights.
Free movement has no single German label, so the specific freedom in play must be identified rather than rendered by one blanket term.

What matters

Advising on an EU internal-market issue, the translation has to name the specific freedom, Freizügigkeit for persons, Art. 45, freier Warenverkehr for goods, Art. 34, and so on, and keep the Grundfreiheiten apart from the Grundrechte. Reaching for Freizügigkeit as a blanket term, or blurring market freedoms with fundamental rights, misstates which freedom governs.

Authority

Art. 26 AEUV
Art. 34 AEUV
Art. 45 AEUV

What the machine misses

Machine output renders free movement with one word, usually Freizügigkeit, whatever is moving. It loses that Freizügigkeit is specifically persons, Art. 21 and Art. 45 TFEU, while goods, services and capital are freier Warenverkehr, Dienstleistungsfreiheit and Kapitalverkehrsfreiheit, and it blurs the Grundfreiheiten, the market freedoms, with the Grundrechte, the fundamental rights. The rendering picks one label where the German term splits by what moves.

See what the machine does with this clause →

Examples

the free movement of goods	der freie Warenverkehr
the free movement of workers	die Arbeitnehmerfreizügigkeit
free movement of persons	die Freizügigkeit
the four freedoms	die vier Grundfreiheiten