Who would you vote for in the Euro elections

[Zero Liability]

UKIP.

[darmstadt]

Well of course you would agree. Anything that removes any vestige of democracy within the EU should be first smeared and then removed.

Just for you:

[Flashman]

Clegg’s “Facts” Turn Out to Be Fiction - Guy Fawkes' blog

Former Clegg spinmeister Olly Grender had no answer when told by Brillo that, despite the LibDem leader’s assurances, the House of Commons library did not back him up on his claim that only 7% of UK law was made in Brussels. Their figure is actually between 15% and 50%

well who'd have thought it?

[DodgyAgent]

Clegg’s “Facts” Turn Out to Be Fiction - Guy Fawkes' blog


well who'd have thought it?

Well done Andrew Neil

[DodgyAgent]

Just for you:

According to you its a sham anyway?

[darmstadt]

The directly elected European Parliament (EP) is one of the most important of the seven institutions of the European Union and one whose increase in legislative power in recent years amount to a step-change.[*] Together with the Council of Ministers, the Parliament is the EU’s legislative body with both law-making and scrutiny roles. Again, with the Council of Ministers, it is the EU’s budget authority, determining the annual budget. It must also approve the nominations of the President and members of the European Commission and it has the power to sack the Commission (as a whole). The parliament’s role and purpose is little understood in the United Kingdom and it is often derided.

Since the Lisbon Treaty the EP has to give its approval to virtually every piece of EU legislation. The one significant exception is the CFSP and even there it has to be consulted and it has some influence because of its control over the budget.
The ordinary legislative procedure (formerly known as “co-decision”) of the EU is triggered by the body proposing legislation, usually the European Commission but it could be a group of Member States, the European Central Bank or the Court in certain circumstances, sending their proposal to the Council and to the EP. On receipt of the proposal, the President of the Parliament (the equivalent of the Speaker of the House of Commons), refers it to the relevant committee of the parliament.
Unlike departmental select committees in Britain, the committees of the EP which scrutinise the work of the individual commissioner’s area of responsibility are involved in the legislative process. A committee will examine the proposal, hold evidence sessions and produce a report to the Parliament as a whole. Very often this results in the Parliament proposing amendments to the legislation. If it rejects the legislation entirely then the Commission or other proposing body must come forward with a new proposal.
The Council may have amendments of its own to a proposal from the Commission and these will need to be shared with the Parliament and discussed. The Council has to consider amendments proposed by the Parliament and if they cannot agree a conciliation process begins to try to find a consensus. At every stage there will be regular communication between members of the Parliament and the Council; the Member State holding the rotating presidency facilitates such discussions. There is a considerable amount of lobbying of the EP by pressure groups and businesses because of the influence the EP has. Legislation can fail - this fact puts enormous pressure on all parties to reach agreement.
This is a simplified explanation of the process and does not take into account the fact this is a political process and that the groups in the EP will take a position on each proposal. Each stage of the process is time-limited and in theory the maximum time between a proposal being issued and a decision by the conciliation committee is nine months but in practice the time limit is regularly breached.

...

The UK has 72 MEPs, 71 elected in June 2009 and an additional member from 1 December 2011 after the Lisbon Treaty’s provisions concerning the Parliament came into force (the extra seat is in the West Midlands). There are 12 regions for the purposes of the EP elections in the UK, in which voters choose a party list and not individual candidates. In Northern Ireland three members are elected by single transferable vote.
The current breakdown by party in the UK is:
Conservatives 25
Labour 13
Liberal Democrats 11
UKIP 12
Greens 2
BNP 2
SNP 2
Plaid Cymru 1
DUP 1
Sinn Fein 1
Ulster Conservatives & Unionist 1
Independent 1

[darmstadt]

There are three recurring myths about EU rules on migration and benefits.

First, it is a myth that EU law gives all EU citizens an unconditional right to reside freely in the UK or another Member State. In reality, this right is subject to important restrictions.

Second, it is a myth that EU law means that EU migrants are automatically entitled to claim benefits in the UK or another Member State. In fact, EU rules require migrants to meet stringent requirements before they can be eligible either for means tested “social assistance” benefits like housing benefit and income support or for social security benefits like child benefit, invalidity benefit or contribution-based Jobseekers’ Allowance.

The third, linked, myth is that EU rules somehow encourage so-called benefit tourism. In fact, the rules are designed to prevent “benefit tourism”.

[darmstadt]

Myth One....

EU citizens have a right to stay in the UK, or any other Member State that is not their own, for up to three months with a valid passport or identity card. But to stay for longer, they need to be:

Πin employment; or

 continue to seek employment and have a genuine chance of being engaged; or

Ž to be able to show that they have sufficient resources not to be a burden on public funds and sickness insurance.

In other words, as UK Immigration Minister Mark Harper recently put it in the Daily Mail: “European nationals do not have unrestricted access to the UK. They must be exercising their treaty rights. This means they must be working, studying or self-sufficient.”

Individuals can also be excluded or expelled on the grounds of public policy or in the event of abuse or fraud.

The full and exact legal provisions are to be found in this EU law adopted by the European Parliament and by national Ministers in 2004.

[DodgyAgent]

And your point is?

[darmstadt]

Mythes Two and Three...

Rules on rights to claim benefits

To get a full picture of how the EU rules work, we need to distinguish between two categories of benefits.

Social assistance benefits – such as Income Support or Housing Benefits– are typically means tested and given to people in need. These benefits are not financed by contributions paid by the individuals, but through general taxation.

EU citizens who are workers or self-employed in the UK (and their family members) are eligible for social assistance benefits without any conditions. That is only fair as they contribute, like all other UK workers, through their taxes to the public funds from which the benefits are financed.

Conversely, EU citizens who are not employed should not be eligible for these benefits as EU law requires them to have resources higher than the income threshold under which the benefits are granted.

Social security benefits are granted to provide cover against the classical social security risks – sickness, maternity and paternity, accidents at work and occupational diseases, old-age and invalidity, unemployment and having to assume financial responsibility for a family. Depending on the social security system of the Member State in question, they may be financed out of contributions (in the UK for example State Pension and contribution-based Jobseeker’s Allowance) or out of general taxation (in the UK for example healthcare in the NHS)

Again, EU citizens who are workers or self-employed persons in the UK (and their direct family members) are entitled to social security benefits on the same terms as UK citizens, provided that they meet certain conditions established by national law, such as for example reaching the retirement age for an old-age pension or having made sufficient contributions for an unemployment benefit.

On the other hand, EU law says that before EU citizens not active in the labour market become eligible for social security benefits they have to pass a strict “habitual residence test” proving that they have a genuine link with the UK.

This test has been agreed by all Member States, including the UK, under this EU Regulation.

In practice, a significant number of those who pass the habitual residence test have worked and paid taxes in the UK for a certain period or are living in the UK as a direct family member of someone working.

(The full criteria EU Member States should apply under the habitual residence test include the duration and continuity of the person’s presence in the Member State concerned; the nature of any activity pursued, including its stability or whether it is habitually pursued and the duration of any work contract, the exercise of any non-remunerated activity; the person’s family status and family ties; in the case of students, the source of their income; the person’s housing situation and its permanence; and in which country the person pays tax.)

These criteria for assessing habitual residence are strict and thus ensure that only those persons who have genuinely moved their centre of interest to a Member State are considered habitually resident there. This is a powerful tool for the UK and other Member States to make sure that social security benefits are only granted to those who are entitled to receive them.

Of course, in order to receive those social security benefits that are directly linked to a certain length or value of contribution, EU migrants must also meet those criteria as well as the habitual residence test.

So reports that the European Commission is insisting that the UK should provide benefits for non-active EU migrants “from day one” are quite simply untrue.

What is true is that the Commission, as it is legally obliged to do under EU treaties and rules to which the UK has signed up, has formally asked the UK to cease applying an additional “right to reside” test specific to the UK and which goes beyond the habitual residence test agreed by all Member States.

In many cases EU nationals living in the UK are indeed receiving the social security benefits to which they are entitled. But applying this additional right to reside test is depriving some other EU nationals living in the UK, in full compliance with EU rules and within the strict limits set by those rules, of social security benefits to which they are entitled.

In many cases, these EU nationals have worked and paid their tax and social security contributions in the UK, yet are still being refused benefits.

The fact that the UK continues to apply this test means that it is applying different criteria to EU nationals in the UK than those being applied to UK nationals resident elsewhere in the EU (of which there are up to two million according to some estimates).

Rights to National Health Service (NHS) treatment

First, EU law certainly does not make the UK a safe haven for EU citizens who would like to come to get healthcare at the expense of UK taxpayers.

Those who come for short periods, for example on holiday, can receive basic and emergency care, by using the European Health Insurance Card (EHIC – formerly known as an E111).

However, under the EHIC system, that care is ultimately paid for by their own Member State of residence. Such visitors are in general not entitled to non-urgent treatment for existing medical conditions and neither are they entitled to come to the UK specifically to obtain NHS treatment.

EU law on the coordination of social security systems provides that those EU citizens – and only those – who can show that they are either employed or self-employed in the UK or non-active but habitually resident in the UK (see above for the criteria) are fully entitled to treatment by the NHS on the same terms as resident UK citizens.

UK law is in line with this principle and does allow EU citizens who are genuinely resident in the UK to have full access to NHS treatment.

UK citizens in other Member States have access to state funded healthcare systems there on the same basis.

But the UK does not recognise entitlement to NHS treatment as comprehensive sickness insurance cover within the meaning of EU law on free movement of EU citizens. It is on that issue that the Commission launched “infringement proceedings” (legal action) in 2011 against the UK.

In the Commission’s view, EU law requires that in assessing whether a non-active EU citizen should be entitled to remain in the UK under the free movement rules, the UK authorities must consider NHS cover – IF the person qualifies for it – as sufficient sickness insurance, without requiring them to obtain private insurance. It is worth emphasising again that the mere fact of being present in the UK is NOT enough to ensure qualification for NHS cover.

EU rules do not prescribe to EU countries how they should set up their national health-care systems. They can shape those systems as they see fit and the only obligation is that they cannot discriminate against EU citizens from other EU countries.

Like a number of other Member States (Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Sweden, Finland), the UK has decided to set up a scheme which does not link entitlements to individual contributions.