New visa to allow UK nationals bring non-EEA family to Ireland

'A Department of Justice statement said UK citizens would continue to enjoy existing arrangements under the Common Travel Area including the freedom to live and work in the State after the transition period following the UK’s exit from the EU ends later this month.' Erin go bragh. Hopefully an option for some impacted by the horrible UK spousal and ADR visa rules.

Digging into this there is an MIR of about 20k euros attached to this, plus a waiting time of up to 6 months, so it's not as good as the Irish Times article makes it sound. However it may be particularly useful for those seeking to sponsor elderly dependent relatives (for example) which is subject to a 'ban masquerading as a rule' in the UK, albeit attached to a minimum income requirement with restrictive conditions.

EU Ruling to impact on European Free Movement and the right to residence?

Source : BBC News with Analysis by Europe correspondent Chris Morris
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30002138
The ruling

Today the European Court of Justice gave its ruling on a case that could have a wide ranging impact on European Free Movement. 

"The European Court of Justice has said member states are within their rights to refuse to give financial help to unemployed EU citizens who move to that country just to claim benefits".

The most concerning part of the ruling could be the part relating to the right of residency.
"The Court also said Ms Dano and her son could not claim a right of residence in Germany because they do not have sufficient resources to support themselves"

It could pave the way for even more restrictions to be announced before the end of the year.
"The BBC's assistant political editor Norman Smith said the government - which has often been at odds with the European Court of Justice in the past - was hailing the ruling as evidence the UK and Germany were on the "same page" when it came to benefit abuses and could pave the way for further restrictions in the coming months."

"The prime minister has said he wants to go further and will set out his plans in a speech before the end of the year, amid pressure from Conservative backbenchers to act."

Since posting this yesterday there are now further sources and links to articles now that the press, legal community and the spin doctors have read the ruling:-

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/11/germany-deny-benefits-welfare-jobless-eu-migrants
http://www.theguardian.com/law/2014/nov/11/european-court-benefits-ruling-bolsters-eu-freedom-movement

http://eulawanalysis.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/benefit-tourism-by-eu-citizens-cjeu.html

http://openeuropeblog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/what-are-implications-of-todays-ecj.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/11224615/EU-benefit-tourists-face-being-sent-home-after-landmark-court-ruling.html

http://www.ein.org.uk/news/european-court-justice-rules-states-can-exclude-benefit-tourists-claiming-social-assistance

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/eu-court-moves-against-benefits-tourism-in-landmark-ruling-9853673.html

Update 20 Nov 2014

It has now been a week since this came out and has been widely hyped and spun by the press in the anti-immigration climate that has developed in the run up to the Rochester by-election that happens today.

So how much of this has been hyped or distorted by the press, spin doctors and politicians? 

Our learned friends at the freemovement blog have been spending a lot of time looking at the facts, analysing the possible implications and cutting through the media spin and hype to bring us an objective view of what if any impact this will have.
http://www.freemovement.org.uk/dano-and-the-exclusion-of-inactive-eu-citizens-from-certain-non-contributory-social-benefits/#more-18373

A big thank you to them for making this widely available to everyone.

EuLawAnalysis blog has also done an article about the historical context of the judgement.
http://eulawanalysis.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/free-movement-and-social-benefits-for.html

Free movement - references to some key court rulings

Here is a summary of some useful case law and other official documentation which could prove useful to those interested in exercising free movement rights.   Reliance on case law should not be blind as it is not necessarily all that is needed to establish rights.  It may not be appropriate for your situation and showing off how much more you know than the caseworker by OD’ing on case law references is likely to piss them off.  Pride is a strange thing! 

Furthermore, Home Office is notoriously slow in updating UK regulations to reflect recent court decisions it is not happy with.  Sadly, it is also not unknown for the Home Office to adopt the most restrictive interpretation possible, leaving it to another case years down the line, to shed clarity or hold the department accountable. 

There are sometimes inconsistencies between judgments where the more recent judgment could ‘trump’ an earlier one, or provide clarification. 

The key message is based on my understanding.  Links are provided so readers can form their own opinions and as always, when in any doubt, you are strongly advised to seek specialist immigration advice.  

Please send any suggestions and corrections (much welcomed) to BritCits@gmail.com

Surinder Singh country specific guide

with updates and brand new sections for Denmark and Netherlands available here.  A massive thank you to all the contributors for sharing your experience.  For those with anything to add, major or trivial, please contact us! If your contribution helps even one person it's gratefully received.

Surinder Singh and Scotland

Hi guys

Hope summer has been good to you.  Some updates:

MM case
Last week the lawyers involved indicated they were still waiting on legal aid approval.  There is some confidence that this will be granted, as will permission to appeal to Supreme Court, possibly for a hearing in February next year. However nothing is for certain yet.  More to come when more is known.

Surinder Singh

Please find here the first version of the Surinder Singh country specific guide.  This collates experience of some members (my sincere thanks to these people) who have exercised treaty rights in various member states, covering Residence Card application process to rentals; from best places to find a job to supermarkets; from mobile phone networks to issues faced in opening a bank account.  There is currently substantive information for Czech Republic, Greece, Ireland and Malta. 

Some have put their hand up to be in-country mentors to those who need more help and these mentors will also organise local meetups.

There are lots of gaps still to be filled in (especially for Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Spain) so pls do your bit to help us help others by dropping me an email with some pointers along the lines of what you have learnt, what you wish you had known before embarking on your SS journey etc  It doesn't have to be major - can even be something as small as recommended restaurants!

If you have any experience you wish to share or are keen to be a mentor, please let me know.

Amended versions will be uploaded to the BritCits website and http://www.scribd.com/doc/239558037/Surinder-Singh-country-specific-guide  If you have trouble downloading from this website let me know and we will email you the latest soft copy.

Scotland independence referendum

Next week as you're aware is the Scottish independence referendum.  A lot is in the media about what people north and south of the border feel would be best.  Not much however seems to have been said from the perspective of migrants - which is where you guys come in.  You could be the first or second generation migrant; have migrant parents or be the migrant partner.

If this is you, it would be great if you could spend just five minutes this weekend to write a paragraph or two (max 400 words) on the emotions evoked by the words British as opposed to say English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish.  Which one/(s) do you identify with?

This is for Politics.co.uk so please send your contributions to us to forward on, or to them directly, no later than Sunday.

HAGW.

Sonel

For all content on mailers sent out this month, see: http://www.scribd.com/word/document_edit/239570170

Clegg slams proposed EU immigration cap

A leaked report has revealed a cap on EU immigration to the UK is under government consideration, reports the Sunday Times.  

The Home Office document suggests the capping of EU immigration to 75,000 annually from the current 183,000.

In response to the leak, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg on Monday said: “My advice to the Home Office is to spend less time leaking policies that are illegal and undeliverable and spend more time delivering on the policies that we have agreed as a coalition government.

“It would be very unwelcome to the two million or so Brits who live and work abroad, who I don't think would thank the Conservative Party for entering into a sort of tit-for-tat race to the bottom, where everybody across the European Union starts pulling up the drawbridge and not allowing people to move to look for work in other parts of the European Union,” he added.

Following Nick Clegg’s intervention, Home Secretary Theresa May insisted the cap would only apply to future EU member states in speaking to the home affairs select committee.

This contradicts a statement she made prior to a ministerial meeting in Brussels earlier this month where she indicated Britain would back a future cap on EU immigration. May’s suggestions to place greater restrictions on free movement at the meeting were sharply dismissed by the European Commission. 

Last week EU Commissioner Laszlo Andor said the EU Commission would intervene over new tests for migrants if necessary

The report, the migration section of a government review of the UK and EU’s balance of competences, investigates the impact of free movement on the UK.

Its publication comes just weeks ahead of the lifting of labour restrictions on Romanian and Bulgarian nationals in January.

Other proposals in the report, as reported by the Sunday Times, include limiting the immigration of workers from new EU member states to the UK until their GDP is 75 per cent of the UK’s, a proposal which Prime Minister David Cameron floated last month in an article for the Financial Times.

“When other countries join the European Union we should be insisting on longer transitions and perhaps even saying until you reach a proper share of an average European Union GDP you can't have freedom of movement,” said Cameron.

Further proposals in the review include restricting the labour movement of highly skilled migrants to the UK from countries such as Germany, the Netherlands and Austria to those with a UK job offer.

Lower-skilled workers would only be allowed to settle in the UK if they have a job which features on an approved list of occupations which are part of a national shortage list.

EU immigrants would have no recourse to public funds for their first five years in the UK and some jobs would be explicitly reserved for UK citizens, reports the Sunday Times.  

Last week Iain Duncan Smith announced new measures to limit migrants’ access to benefits, including an English test. The move may see the European Commission, which believes current safeguards in place to protect host member states from abuse are sufficient, challenge the UK with court action.

In the year ending June 2013, EU immigration to the UK was 183,000, an increase on the previous year.

The government has pledged to reduce net migration to less than 100,000 a year by the next election.

The free movement of workers, one of four fundamental freedoms of the EU, does not allow for discrimination between workers of member states based on nationality.

Any move by the UK government to cap EU immigration is expected to be blocked by the EU since it would require a change in EU legislation. Alternatively, the UK would have to exit the EU. 

Related articles

Britain fails to renegotiate EU free movement rules

UK faces EU intervention over tests for migrants 

UK tightens Surinder Singh route

As of 1st January 2014, non-EU family members of British citizens will face greater restrictions on their right to free movement within the European Union (EU).

The changes, published by the Home Office last week as amendments to the 2006 regulations concerning European Economic Area immigration, affect the UK’s interpretation of the Council Directive 2004/38/EC (the Directive).

The Directive governs the right of EU citizens and their family members to move and reside freely within any member state, with free movement a fundamental principal of the EU.

Among the measures introduced by the regulations to tackle the abuse of rights of residence conferred by the Directive are new criteria concerning the family members of British citizens hoping to benefit from the provisions of the Singh case.

In C-370/90 Singh, the Court of Justice in the European Union ruled that non-EU family members of EU nationals who have worked in another member state may retain their rights to free movement on return to the EU citizen’s member state of nationality. This judgment has been given effect in UK law via the 2006 regulations. 

Under the new regulations, the qualifying criteria which give effect to this judgment have been amended. The new rules state that in order for family members to benefit from the Singh provisions, the British citizen must have transferred the ‘centre of their life’ to another member state.

“Whether or not a British citizen has transferred the centre of their life to another member state will be assessed by reference to a number of criteria, including the length of residence, the degree of integration and whether or not the British citizen has moved their principal residence to that other member state,” says the memorandum.

The changes have been made to, “… ensure that there has been a genuine and effective use of free movement rights in the other member state before such rights may apply by analogy upon return to the UK.”

There has been a surge in British nationals using what is commonly referred to as the Surinder Singh route since the July 2012 amendments to the immigration rules, which saw the introduction of a financial requirement for British sponsors of non-EU partners and dependent children.

While the new criteria will have the effect of: “… preventing abuse by those British citizens who move temporarily to another member state in order to circumvent the requirements of the usual immigration rules for their family members upon return to the UK” according to the amendment, it could have a disproportionate impact on the exercise of free movement rights, something the Singh judgment sought to prevent. 

THE IMMIGRATION (EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AREA) (AMENDMENT) (No. 2) REGULATIONS 2013

Britain fails to renegotiate EU free movement rules

Home Secretary Theresa May’s proposals to place greater restrictions on free movement in the EU were dismissed by the European Commission on Thursday.

At the Brussels meeting of EU ministers, EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding attacked the UK’s welfare system, saying it was “too generous” and “any abuse of benefits by EU migrants is the fault of the British authorities.”

EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding attacked the UK’s welfare system

Last week May suggested a cap on numbers if immigration crosses a certain threshold and proposed new member states reach a certain level of economic output or income per head before full free movement rights are permitted.

“We must be able to slow full access to each other’s labour markets until we can be sure it will not lead to mass migration,” said May.

The Netherlands, Germany and Italy have shown some support for free movement reform.

The meeting follows the announcement by Prime Minister David Cameron of plans to limit EU nationals’ access to benefits in the UK, a move which may turn out to be unlawful under EU law.

Among the limitations on the availability of benefits to EU migrants proposed by Cameron are no unemployment benefits for the first three months, no housing benefits on arrival and no benefits after six months.

Reding said the changes will be monitored in Brussels and challenged legally should they break European law.

“Our EU rules are good and they are here to stay. Member states need to apply them to tackle abuse,” said Reding.

The European Commission is expected to release a report on free movement abuse during the two-day meeting which is scheduled to end today.

The proposals come ahead of the removal of labour market restrictions on Bulgarian and Romanian workers in the UK in January 2014.

The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics reveal the biggest rise in immigration in the year preceding June 2013 was migrants from EU nations. 

October saw the publication of a European Commission report which claims less than 38,000 EU migrants claimed Jobseeker's Allowance in the UK in 2012 and unemployed migrants made up just 1.2 per cent of the total population.

Free movement is a fundamental principal of the EU and one which is closely tied to trade and economic integration. Eurostat data says there were 2.3 million EU citizens in the UK and 2.2 million UK citizens in other EU countries in 2012.