EU Commission takes the UK to court

[Richard66]

The ICO is completely ignoring me and my complaint re: UKBA.

Next step?

You just keep writing the way I am doing. Have you contacted your MP? I need to get hold of mine (raised by the Home Office to the Peerage!)

At a certain point you can set the lawyers on them, I believe.

[Directive/2004/38/EC]

The Mail on Sunday reported that the education secretary believed it was time to tell the EU to "give us back our sovereignty or we will walk out"

Something smells odd. Must be election season again!

[docteurbenway]

More fun reading, i am sorry if i am posting too many articles, but it is just great comedy fun:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 12365.html

[jotter]

Hmm. While the '130 measures' seems harmless enough, Theresa May's comments about freedom of movement last week were not my idea of a good joke. The Tory fixation on this is discomforting for EU nationals/families and if the ministry continue play appeasement with the party right-wing and trying to win votes from UKIP by euro-bashing it could develop a momentum of its own. Having said that, heads of state on the continent seem to be doing their best to help the euro-sceptics this year.

[docteurbenway]

For all of us who are waiting for this matter to be resolved soon, here are a few words from Theresa May to help "lift our spirits":

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ssels.html

and

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/oct/0 ... -migration

Here is a quote right on the money, published less than a week ago:

"May wants to review the way EU rules allow partners of EU citizens to reside in the EU. Once they enter the territory of the host member state, non-EU family members enjoy the same right of residence as the person they are accompanying, provided they hold a valid passport. The free movement directive extends the right to equal treatment – including access to social assistance – to non-EU family members who have the right of residence or permanent residence in the host member state...May is struggling to reach her aim of cutting the overall number of immigrants to the UK to below 100,000, partly due to her inability to slap any direct controls on EU migrants. EU migration accounted for 27% of total UK net immigration in 2010, a majority of which came from the eastern European states that joined the EU in 2004."

[ruben7]

I ask the Gurus and Moderators to give your opinion on this matter. I have been reading about this situation from different sources, and I am sure there are lots of people here who are very concerned about this matter, I am certainly one of them.

I know that these new rules are not going to happen by tomorrow or in a week, but most probably they would happen. I know that there are hundreds, thousands of couples all over the world who are planning on coming to the UK.

So I will like to know what some of the Gurus and Moderators who are so knowledgeable on this matters can advice people on this forum.

A few questions :

1-) Can it happen ?

2-)When would it happen ?

3-) What would happen to the people or couples that are married to EU Citizens living in the UK and are NON-EU nationals themselves or like in my case I still dont have a passport from my wife's EU country ?

4-) Would they kick us out ?

5-) What about all the couples that are planning on coming here ?

So many questions, so many concerns.... and at the end of the day we all want to just be with our couples and have a good life !


Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar" We all want to work and eat bread from the sweat that runs down from our foreheads due to our daily work

It's a shame that some people don't realize this.

[tanabrennan]

I ask the Gurus and Moderators to give your opinion on this matter. I have been reading about this situation from different sources, and I am sure there are lots of people here who are very concerned about this matter, I am certainly one of them.

I know that these new rules are not going to happen by tomorrow or in a week, but most probably they would happen. I know that there are hundreds, thousands of couples all over the world who are planning on coming to the UK.

So I will like to know what some of the Gurus and Moderators who are so knowledgeable on this matters can advice people on this forum.

A few questions :

1-) Can it happen ?

2-)When would it happen ?

3-) What would happen to the people or couples that are married to EU Citizens living in the UK and are NON-EU nationals themselves or like in my case I still dont have a passport from my wife's EU country ?

4-) Would they kick us out ?

5-) What about all the couples that are planning on coming here ?

So many questions, so many concerns.... and at the end of the day we all want to just be with our couples and have a good life !


Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar" We all want to work and eat bread from the sweat that runs down from our foreheads due to our daily work

It's a shame that some people don't realize this.

Stop worrying yourself, there are million of eea citizen and their families apart from spouse here in UK, they will have a big job on their hand and moreover, if they want you to leave then your eea member too must leave first.
All you are reading and they are shouting on TV is just Politics, its a game to keep their votes. at the end you will see nothing will happen. Do you think UK is not Enjoying be BIG Boss in the EU?

[Directive/2004/38/EC]

My take on it: It is nothing to worry about. It is all political show. Free movement rights come from the original founding treaty of the EU and there is no way for the UK to opt out.

[mstevens]

Finally received a response from the UKBA to my FOI request.

See response here:

http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/1 ... sponse.pdf

Have read through. The response seems like a complete palm off but want to get other people's thoughts on this.

I think if we collectively dissect this letter and share comments - then maybe we can come together and draft a suitable reply to the UKBA on this?

[docteurbenway]

Finally received a response from the UKBA to my FOI request.

See response here:

http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/1 ... sponse.pdf

Have read through. The response seems like a complete palm off but want to get other people's thoughts on this.

I think if we collectively dissect this letter and share comments - then maybe we can come together and draft a suitable reply to the UKBA on this?

Hi Martin,

i had a quick read-through of the response and it looks like the UKBA are pretty much saying:

1- Our interpretation is that only holders of UK issued residence cards are not required to get an EEA Family permit and that is in accordance with the directive. We are not going to amend anything with regards to all EEA Family cards from other EU states until actually forced to do so by the ECJ. (So far they have not been referred to the ECJ and all of this is just opinions and recommendations)

2- They are trying to find all possible legal loopholes not to disclose any communications with the commission to the public.

As things stand they are saying nothing will change until ECJ rules on the matter. So far the case is still in the recommendation phases. This is similar to the Surinder-Singh case where only by force of an ECJ ruling are they going to apply the rules correctly.

So now we wait for the case to be resolved in court. At this stage it is pretty much useless to reply to this or ask anymore information since they wish to ignore everything related to the matter until the ECJ rules.

The main issue here continues to be that the UK is actually allowing EEA Family members to enter the UK by providing a so called stamp A1 or 1A(not sure) and it actually says in their manuals that the EEA Family permit is not mandatory.

So family members can argue their way into the UK if:

1.They manage to reach the border
2.Have a marriage certificate and spouse is with them
3.Argue their way and spend time and nerves on it

This is made difficult since the UK uses the confusion in different laws to scare airlines into not accepting EEA Family cards on board, under the threat of fines, which is not true or legal.

So options are either travel by car/ferry from Calais or use the Lille loophole. Since EEA Family permits are not mandatory both options work in 90% of cases. It does however require nerves of steel.

So far the most easily accessible part of the UK is Northern Ireland. Again all of this does not make any sense and our only hope is the ECJ.

[Hubba]

So options are either travel by car/ferry from Calais or use the Lille loophole. Since EEA Family permits are not mandatory both options work in 90% of cases. It does however require nerves of steel.

So far the most easily accessible part of the UK is Northern Ireland. Again all of this does not make any sense and our only hope is the ECJ.

No such thing as the Lille loophole anymore. UKBA implemented passport checks on the arrival at St. Pancras. At least I've passed through such checks the last couple of times I've used the Eurostar. They check the stamped boarding pass and passport.

[Directive/2004/38/EC]

What is the "Lille loophole"?

[Jambo]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -time.html

[onlineamiga]

So any update on this ECJ threat from Europe? Is the EU Commission going to continue sitting on their mule whilst the UK continues to get away with denying people their fundamental European free movement rights?

[docteurbenway]

So any update on this ECJ threat from Europe? Is the EU Commission going to continue sitting on their mule whilst the UK continues to get away with denying people their fundamental European free movement rights?

Still no news, but here is a funny article to cheer us up while we wait:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... itain.html

[rogerlongships]

Well, after a lot of aggrivation just getting tickets, and being held onboard ship for 6 hours waiting to be landed by UKBA, my Russian wife was admitted to the UK on a code 3, with just our passports, marriage certificate and Swedish resident permits. Apparantly the UKBA officer had never landed anyone this way before, and made a big fuss about our entry being "discretionary", and that we should have,and next time, get an EEA permit, none of which is strictly needed as he allowed my wife entry anyway. Clearly the rules,as he said himself are open to interpretation by individual officers, as 3 other officers has told our travel operator we would not be landed without a visa. I have an ongoing issue with the UKBA in regards to my wifes entry stamp in her passport being a whole month before we arrived,and getting that information corrected, no easy task.
Much less hassle to get an EEA family permit, but i take a certain pride to being called as "stubborn as a Norwegian", and at least set a precedence should we travel again with the same company.

[kyky]

Surprisingly to me, Ryanair admitted that they did a mistake when refusing to board my wife on a flight from Germany to London. I am non-UK EU-citizen and my wife is non-EU citizen holding a non-UK EU residence card. They issued a 250 euro compensation according to regulation 261/2004. I would suggest to everyone who has been refused boarding by Ryanair in this situation to claim this compensation. I don't think they have a good reason to grant it on one case and refuse it in another.

Further more, Ryanair said they have instructed their stuff accordingly. If true, this would mean that Ryanair is now officially boarding passengers without a family permit visa.

[Directive/2004/38/EC]

Surprisingly to me, Ryanair admitted that they did a mistake when refusing to board my wife on a flight from Germany to London. I am non-UK EU-citizen and my wife is non-EU citizen holding a non-UK EU residence card. They issued a 250 euro compensation according to regulation 261/2004. I would suggest to everyone who has been refused boarding by Ryanair in this situation to claim this compensation. I don't think they have a good reason to grant it on one case and refuse it in another.

Further more, Ryanair said they have instructed their stuff accordingly. If true, this would mean that Ryanair is now officially boarding passengers without a family permit visa.

Very very interesting. Can you please provide as much more detail as possible.

Can you possibly contact Ryanair and ask what is the date and name of this particular instruction to their staff? It would be very useful to have some reference to this guidance.

[docteurbenway]

Some very troubling news out of the UK:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politic ... rists.html

"The Prime Minister suggested only working immigrants should be allowed into the country, even if it means undermining the EU's key principle of "free movement"."

[Directive/2004/38/EC]

Some very troubling news out of the UK:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politic ... rists.html

"The Prime Minister suggested only working immigrants should be allowed into the country, even if it means undermining the EU's key principle of "free movement"."

I find it silly posturing. Don't worry about it.

They already have the ability of stopping benefit tourism. And there is not much of it. So where is the beef?

[aledeniz]

Some very troubling news out of the UK:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politic ... rists.html

I think the bone of contention is:

"Should we look at arguments about, should it be harder for people to come and live in Britain and claim benefits? Yes, frankly we should"

and I must say that I don't really totally disagree with him, as long as he is going to make harder in the same way to claim benefits also for people who are already living in Britain, and I don't mean only the non British ones.
The point I would like to make is that nowadays living off the benefit system is still way too easy, we should have in place more strategies to get more people, British or otherwise, in a job. I am thinking in example at compulsory programs like "Work for dole", or "Learn to drive for dole" or really at "Learn anything useful to get a job for dole", and also at raising the no tax and no contribution area to make low income work a more palatable alternative for people in benefit, and so on, in a multi pronged approach.
It would be useful also to invest to promote, I'd say in some case subsidize, the academic path for certain medium to high income professions. Say the medical profession: Italy has double the number of physicians per unit of population, and at the same time the Italian universal health system is able to get better results than the NHS even if Italy spend half of what the UK spend in health care. It is a no brainer that those two measures must be quite correlated. Create more university places to train doctors, and help more people from low income families to follow that career path, everyone will benefit (well, minus the current crop of medical professionals, who would see their market power and income decrease, but hardly to a level where they would any advantage to jump on the benefit wagon) and the taxpayers will get a better service in return for their hard toiled money.

[pilayo]

Mr Cameron maybe don't remember the amount of UK citizens that go to other countries for a surgery beause their "great" NHS
Which of those extraordinary beneficts do I have here in UK for the amount of taxes that I'm paying????? Sincerely I haven't found anything special yet....apart from a well paid job...and also from my part a well paid taxes..
I think that the UE should pay them the same ....they will decide if a uk citizen enters or not in a EU country...

[pilayo]

Better edit...

[keffers]

Do these people who go to other European countries pay for it or is it 'on the house'?

Similarly, it would seem the majority of British citizens who go to live abroad (EU) almost always take their own money with them to buy property and have pensions/savings to support their living costs - at leat for several years.

The gripe with the British taxpayer is that 90% of immigrants to the UK do not bring money - only their labour. Not a bad thing when their was an abundance of jobs and no benefit entitlement for ten years. But that is not the case.

Great for the money making institutions - but for the long term economy and public services?

[Directive/2004/38/EC]

Similarly, it would seem the majority of British citizens who go to live abroad (EU) almost always take their own money with them to buy property and have pensions/savings to support their living costs - at leat for several years.

The gripe with the British taxpayer is that 90% of immigrants to the UK do not bring money - only their labour. Not a bad thing when their was an abundance of jobs and no benefit entitlement for ten years. But that is not the case.

Are there any stats that back up either of the claims in these two paragraphs? I would be very interested in more details!