Benefits for immigrants from the EU

[Paddy]

This is the problem. No one in the EU 'emigrates' to another country in the EU. You just turn up. The host country then is legally obliged under EU law to support them. You cannot treat EU citizens differently to people born in your own country.

These are the rules of the club. Pretty much everyone in the EU seems to understand this apart from, apparently, our own glorious Conservative party.

Try turning up in Paris and applying for a job and benefits

[wonderboy]

It saves a lot of hassle when you are moving around Europe that you don' have to jet off home every time you lose your job.

i.e. it benefits people from the UK who work around the EU and Switzerland. It's part of being in a market that supports the movement of people.

Since it only applies to countries with similar social security systems the number of Johnny Foreigners claiming benefits are balanced out by people from the UK claiming benefits in the other countries.

i.e. it doesn't cost the tax payer anything

It does not follow that if I lose my job in a foreign country that I have to jet back home. Being glib for a moment, all of Europe is connected by road and rail. Otherwise, skilled labour has the ability to save for a rainy day. Turning up to a new country on spec without thinking about how you are going to support yourself should not be encouraged surely?

Plus do you have any numbers to back up this so called balancing out of the numbers. What proportion of Bulgarians speak German, as opposed to any English?

[AtW]

Try turning up in Paris and applying for a job and benefits

Do you have to speak French in order to apply?

Turning up to a new country on spec without thinking about how you are going to support yourself should not be encouraged surely?

Aye, for sure. Having at least 12 months period before claim can be made is reasonable, and perhaps only if that person actually held the job that paid enough NICs to warrant such payments. Otherwise go home or some other country - pretty good choice in Europe actually.

[darmstadt]

You honestly think there are 1.2 million British people living in foreign social housing around the world supported by foreign governments?

Probably be quite a few in Spain soon and putting a squeeze on their health service too

[SueEllen]

If that is the intention then it is completely wrongheaded because movement of *skilled* labor is is no way restricted without these reciprocal benefit agreements - you've heard of the World Wide Web and Skype? They've been around for some time now. As a skilled person I can go online and apply to Romanian companies to my heart's content, or register my resume with recruitment agencies in any country I like. A reciprocal benefit agreement is neither here nor there to a skilled worker.

The policy I'm talking about has been in place before use of the web in finding and getting jobs became common.

Also if you are a chef* how are you going to prove that you are any good unless you are in the country concerned? Skilled labour includes not just knowledge workers but people like chefs.

*I'm ignoring the issue with chefs and non-EU migration. I also know how some chefs did get their jobs abroad.

[BlasterBates]

You honestly think there are 1.2 million British people living in foreign social housing around the world supported by foreign governments?

You're not suggesting there 1.2 million from the countries who are subject to the agreement? Of course not. I don't know what figure you have there but it has nothing to do with what we're discussing.

[xoggoth]

It's a reciprocal arrangement and means you as a UK citizen can go to Germany or Switzerland and do the same, and people from the UK regularly do it.

Talk about avoiding the issue. The reciprocity you mention with reference to Germany France, Spain and other Western nations is not disputed but I don't think I have ever seen anyone complaining about people from those nations. The EU with reference to those nations is largely a positive thing.

There is NO such reciprocity with reference to some poorer eastern European nations like Romania or high crime countries like Lithuania, which is what people are actually concerned about. You may not be aware of it but there have even been restrictions in place to prevent Britains/Germans etc buying up the much cheaper land in those countries and obtaining a real benefit in return.

Some of you just will not address the real issues or real concerns. Unfortunately, this risks destroying the drive to what is a very desirable concept of a united Europe. If our leaders, and some of you, had any sense we would go much more slowly and only allow unrestricted movement and access to benefits once the nations has attained a reasonably similar standard of living, similar crime levels and had secure borders. A united world is a great ideal too, and it may happen one day, but to allow unrestricted access from third world countries would be insane.

Unfortunately, too many do exactly the same thing that they are always accusing The Daily Mail of doing. To point to individual cases of successful migrants is no more an argument in favour of mass immigration than "Asylum seeker in £2m apartment" is an argument against. What matters are the figures and statistics and if you actually try looking at them they are not in your favour.

So migrants make a net contribution of £6bn to the UK economy? (Home Office report 2007). Even if it was true (the cost of educating migrants' children is one of several factors not included) that is less than 1% of government expenditure, 0.5% of GDP in return for a 13% expansion in our population with all the pressures on housing, rent, power, water and other infrastructure that that causes. HIV among Africans and tackling Islamic terrorism alone cost half of that.

I am amazed that people who work in IT are quite so irrational and fact free as some on here.

[AtW]

Also if you are a chef* how are you going to prove that you are any good unless you are in the country concerned? Skilled labour includes not just knowledge workers but people like chefs. *I'm ignoring the issue with chefs and non-EU migration. I also know how some chefs did get their jobs abroad.

Easy - by checking online reviews of the establishment where that chef was allegedly working - then fly in for an interview

[SueEllen]

You honestly think there are 1.2 million British people living in foreign social housing around the world supported by foreign governments?

They must have foreign partners who are citizens of that country. I do actually know of one case cos things went wrong.

In regards to the UK figures does it exclude those who have one adult British born resident in the household?

[BlasterBates]

There is NO such reciprocity with reference to some poorer eastern European nations like Romania or high crime countries like Lithuania, which is what people are actually concerned about. You may not be aware of it but there have even been restrictions in place to prevent Britains/Germans etc buying up the much cheaper land in those countries and obtaining a real benefit in return.

People from Eastern Europe are not subject to the agreement we're discussing. Wonderboy is up in arms because he has found out about an agreement that his been around since the common market, but wasn't extended to the new Eastern European countries.

Any foreigner in the UK has entitlement to benefits after he has worked for a certain time, but that has always been the case. There has never been a time where someone has been refused benefits after paying NI.

Similar rules applie in all OECD countries including USA, Australia and New Zealand.