Britons on benefits in Europe

There are some claiming benefits here in Switzerland, which is not even part of Europe!

Thanks for the link Nellie, food for thought indeed.

Guardian bias as usual.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/11355148/Twice-as-many-EU-immigrants-claiming-unemployment-benefits-in-UK-than-vice-versa-new-research-show.html

This argument is purely about unemployment benefit statistics and are based on governmnet sources.

Magpie123 Can you enlighten me on the source of the statistics used by the DT and why you think that the DT might be any less likely to be biased than the Guardian?

Interesting op Nelliemoser.

I'm curious as to why Magpie 123 says the Guardian is biased but the Telegraph isn't.

I'm a Guardian reader, but I do read the Telegraph and I enjoy the difference in slant between the two papers. So, I echo your question, what's the basis for Magpie 123's rather irritable comment!

The point for me is that we're all European and I'm much rather be a European that an isolated Brit, or a country tied so firmly to the strings of the USA that we dance to their tune.

I can't speak for Magie123 of course, but my understanding of her post was that she was offering an alternative viewpoint by her link to the Telegraph article.

Nowhere does she say that the Guardian is biased but the Telegraph isn't.

I occasionally buy the independent.
Is is actually independent. I have always wondered.

And if it is independent [spelling, , I think I am getting spellings wrong here somewhere], how come no one appears to link to the independent.

I am having trouble getting my head round the whole issue really.
How can you be abroad and yet claim benefits?
Does it mean that an unemployed person here, can say go to Spain, and be unemployed there and be under their benefit system, or ours?

By the way, if no one wants to fill me in on this, I understand.
I get the impression that a few posters [not talking about ones on here] would rather I knew everything about everything already.

It is all part of being in Europe, benefits are transferable- including unemployment. Switzerland, where I live, is not part of Europe, but has reciprocal arrangements with the UK and Europe- so it works the same here.

I know of at least one person who is getting full social benefits and invalidity benefits, on a residential care basis which costs an absolute fortune, from the UK- who has never ever worked here in Switzerland.

It seems to me that both the Guardian and the Telegraph have provided a different slant on the findings - though the Guardian article is far more informative and detailed. So magpie's comment "Guardian bias as usual" is, I think, misleading.

As I understand it from the Guardian article, 30,000+ Britons are in receipt of unemployment benefit in other EU countries. Three times as many Britons claim benefit in the EU's relatively richer countries as do their nationals in Britain - and benefit rates in those countries are substantially higher than in Britain.

I think the Telegraph article is emphasizing the fact that in effect no Britons claim benefit in the poorer Eastern European countries but that around 35,000 Eastern Europeans claim benefits here.

David Cameron has said he wants to stop foreign job seekers from claiming benefit here and to deport them if they do not find a job within six months. If he was allowed to do this (and most commentators seem to say this will not be permitted), that would presumably mean that, on a reciprocal basis, the 30,000+ Britons receiving benefits in other EU countries would no longer be eligible for them and would have to return to Britain.

Just picked up on this thread. I found out whilst on holiday in Turkey last year, Brits who live and work there who are also claiming various UK bennies. These bennies are paid into UK bank accounts. It costs about £50 to fly from Istanbul to UK return at low rate. Not their fault - the Gov needs to act on plugging loopholes.

Eleothan
This is just not true. just because the UK doesn't want to pay benefits to foreigners doesn't mean that other countries feel that way. If the people have worked in Europe and paid out of their pay packet the required amount for unemployment benefit and social security then they will get it no matter what David Cameron says or does.
Wherever there are foreigners working, then the workers always pay in more than their countrymen who have lost their job or become ill. Many newspapers say this again and again, but there is a core of Brits against anybody not British, who refuse to believe it.

I'm getting a bit confused. I thought this was referring to out-of-work benefits. Would other EU countries still pay Britons those benefits if we withdrew them from non-UK citizens?

I think it's fairly academic because unless we withdraw from the EU I can't see how we would be allowed to do it. If we did withdraw, then presumably there would be great upheaval for EU citizens in the UK and for UK citizens in the EU. Or perhaps they'd continue somehow with the reciprocal arrangement.

I think you'll find, soontobe, that I link to the independent quite regularly.
Or rather the i, which has just put its price up by 25% to 40p.
I buy it because it's more reasonable for my grandson to read, and because after teaching him for a day, I fall asleep while reading the Guardian.

theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/19/-sp-search-for-only-briton-poland-claiming-benefits

I remember reading that article last month, Nellie. I thought this was interesting, too. Not worth the Brits getting unemployment benefit in Poland.
If they are out of work over there, they appear to be coming back here to get benefit.

https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.theguardian.com/world/norway&sa=U&ei=swbxVJ_3D8HsUKPpgpAD&ved=0CAUQFjAA&client=internal-uds-cse&usg=AFQjCNHdW5euK32X-lrCViwNYGYK2_bCMg

A bit more Guardian bias, but from a Norwegian perspective about what influence we might lose if we came out of Europe.