The article examines
how legal time and the different categories of residence introduced by
Directive 2004/38 operate as tools of governance in relation to migrant EU
citizens who enjoy a legal right to move and reside in other EU states than the
state of their nationality. By linking status progression to economic
self-sufficiency, EU law, its interpretation by the Court of Justice, and its
application at the national level point towards economic time as the dominant
temporality disciplining the exercise of EU free movement rights by EU
citizens, workers, and otherwise. The result is the creation of uneven mobility
and differentiated mobile EU subjects, depending on their proximity to the
economic rationale of the EU free movement regime.