Ignore the European Commission’s legal threats over welfare payments to EU nationals 3

Tom Welsh European Union

The European Commission has threatened to take legal action against the British Government over the rights of foreigners to claim benefits in Britain. British nationals are automatically considered to have the ‘right to reside’ but people of other EU nationalities are subject to an assessment first.

Discriminatory, says the Commission, which has given Britain a two month deadline to allow foreigners easier access to welfare in Britain, warning:

“Otherwise, the commission may decide to refer the UK to the EU’s Court of Justice.”

Changing the law to meet the demands could cost British taxpayers £2 billion a year as thousands of jobless EU nationals arrive with immediate eligibility for means-tested, residence-based benefits. The Commission is attacking not only the right of every member state to decide who is eligible for its benefits and why, but also the foundations of current welfare reform plans. The Work and Pensions Secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, spoke out against the move:

“This threatens to break the vital link which should exist between taxpayers and their own government. I sense this is part of a wider movement, coming in the same week as the proposals for a financial transactions tax across Europe which threatens to punish UK banks by decreasing their competitiveness abroad.”

Duncan Smith is rightly outraged at a ‘rising tide of judgements’ from European institutions, but taxpayers should be equally furious that a useful policy for preventing fraudulent use of our benefits system is being attacked by the unelected and the unaccountable. If Britain gives in to Brussels’ sabre-rattling the link between contribution and eligibility will be effectively destroyed.

The Government should simply ignore the warning and, if it becomes necessary, challenge the Commission in the EU Court of Justice. If the Commission wins, the Government should consider whether that decision might provide the circumstances for a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU.

Tom Welsh

Tom is a graduate of the University of Oxford and was a researcher at the TPA from October 2011 to February 2012

Follow @the_tpa

Hamish

From Daniel hanna’s Telegraph blog:- Article 7(1) of the Free Movement Directive gives EU citizens the right to reside in another member state only if
they have “sufficient resources for themselves and their family members
not to become a burden on the social assistance system of the host
Member State”.

Ignoring this threat is unacceptable. It should be rejected and the recommendation robustly challenged by our government.
Hamish

My apologies for the appalling typing. There are no excuses, simply ineptitude. It is Daniel Hannan’s blog in The Telegraph.
Orac54

We should ignore it. The French have a list of prosecutions in the hundreds, of things they simply decide they don’t like, and won’t implement because it isn’t in their national interest.

This is a bit more salient because it’s UK, and the UK population are known to be inimical to EU membership. For that reason, you’ll find that the EC back off, so as not to give the opportunity for the UK Govt to put it to a referendum.