FEEDBACK REPORT What the Database Tells us · What the Database Tells us Prepared for the European Commission, Directorate General for the Internal Market and Financial Services by

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CITIZENS SIGNPOST SERVICE FEEDBACK REPORT What the Database Tells us Prepared for the European Commission, Directorate General for the Internal Market and Financial Services by the Citizens Signpost Service Management Team, European Citizens Action Service, Brussels This report was prepared by ECAS, that provides the Citizens Signpost Service as an external contractor for the Commission. The report is based on concrete life situations raised by the users of the Citizens Signpost Service. The views expressed in the report do not necessarily express the opinion of the Commission’s services and do not bind the Commission. 15 January 2007

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Contents page Summary 3 Report 7 1 Enquiries and Population 7 2 Age groups 11 3 Economic category 13 4 Nationality and Residence 16 5 Topics 23 I Working II Enforcing your rights III Enlargement 6 Subtopics – overview 33 7 Subtopics – detail 36 I The four most frequently selected subtopics II Social Security and Welfare Benefits III Motor vehicles IV Opening a bank account in another Member State 8 Health and Financial Services 52 Annex – Methodology 59 I Four Methods II Comment Charts and Tables 63 Note: Most of the work for this report was carried out by Richard Upson and Edita Barauskaitė, who gratefully acknowledge the help provided by members of the CSS team and the technical support of Laurent Merchez.

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SUMMARY 1 This is the first in a series of feedback reports requested by the Commission in June 2006. It analyses nearly 7,000 cases (the eligible cases replied to between January and October 2006), and includes illustrative cases drawn from recent enquiries.1 The methodology is set out in the Annex. The Overall Picture 2 The picture given by the analysis provides a surprisingly detailed reflection of the current patterns of mobility in the EU and the preoccupations which accompany them. 3 In terms of nationalities, the larger ones (by size) dominate the share of enquiries, but many smaller nationalities make relatively more enquiries than their share of EU population. Chart: Enquiries and Population - percentages

0,1%0,5% 0,6% 0,7% 0,7% 0,8%

1,0%1,4%

1,7%2,3% 2,3% 2,3% 2,3% 2,5%

3,1%

3,8%4,4%

4,8%

6,4%6,7% 6,8%

7,7%

10,5%

12,5%

13,9%

0,1%0,4% 0,3% 0,2%

0,5%0,1%

2,2%

1,2% 1,1%

1,8%

1,2%0,9% 0,8%

2,2%2,0%

2,3% 2,3% 2,3%

8,5%8,8%

3,6%

12,7%13,2% 13,2%

18,1%

Luxe

mbo

urge

r

Slov

enia

n

Esto

nian

Cypr

iot

Latv

ian

Mal

tese

Czec

h

Dan

ish

Finn

ish

Aust

rian

Slov

akia

n

Iris

h

Lith

uani

an

Hun

garia

n

Swed

ish

Gre

ek

Port

ugue

se

Belg

ian

Polis

h

Span

ish

Dut

ch

Ital

ian

Fren

ch

Briti

sh

Ger

man

Enquiries %

Pop. %

1 The report does not deal with the management of the project nor of the statistics relating to the month by month development of the service. These aspects are already covered at length in the monthly reports provided by ECAS to the Commission, in the regular statistics produced by the Commission, and in discussions at the Steering Group Meetings.

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4 Nationalities which are well below their share of EU population include Germans, French, Italians, Spanish, Poles and Czechs.

Those which are well above their population share include Dutch, Belgians, Portuguese, Greeks, Swedes, Lithuanians, Irish, Slovaks, Finns, Maltese, Cypriots and Estonians.

The position of the Czech Republic is unexpected: the number of enquiries per head from this relatively small country is very low. 5 Enquiries concerning non-EU nationalities are noticeable in respect of the Czech Republic and Latvia. 6 Citizens from the new member states and from certain southern member states are well represented in the younger age groups; the older age groups predominate in certain more northerly member states. The evidence points clearly to the marked impact of economic opportunities attracting younger (often but not exclusively “eastern” migrants), and of relative prosperity in or near retirement accounting for a southward pull among certain older member states. 7 In almost half of all enquiries an ‘employed’ category is selected, while ‘homemaker, not seeking employment’ is the least chosen economic category. 8 Nearly three-quarters of enquiries about individual countries (‘country to which problem relates’) are made by non-nationals; and over a half of enquiries about individual countries are made by non-residents. This suggests that most migrants’ enquiries are made before a move is made or after a move back. There is also a sizeable minority of enquiries from resident nationals, showing that the CSS also deals with non-migrant issues. 9 While ‘working’, as a topic, accounts for nearly two enquiries in every five, the most frequently selected subtopics are ‘right of residence’ and ‘social security’, followed by ‘access to employment’ and ‘taxes’. A clear difference is shown between the EU10 and EU15 countries: for EU10, the main subtopic is ‘access to employment’, while for EU15 countries relatively more importance is placed on ‘right of residence’ and ‘taxes’; social security issues are of equal importance to both groups. 10 A keyword search showed that 7.7% of enquiries related to health services, while 5.1% related to financial services. The European Health Insurance Card, as a phrase, produced a large number of matches in the database.

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“Shining the Torch” 11 The “searchlight” technique is used throughout the report to focus on particular countries and themes. Among the features it brings to light are the following: a. on ‘access to employment’, Poles ask a much larger number of questions than their population share of the EU, while the British ask proportionately much fewer. In fact there is a fair spread of enquiries on this subtopic across the EU15; b. France is quite noticeable as a country for issues related to enforcement of rights, while Belgium shows up for residence issues; c. there is a relatively high proportion of ‘judicial remedies’ under the topic ‘enforcing your rights’; d. while Britons ask most questions about motor vehicle issues (insurance, tax, type approval), the countries which appear most frequently as those to which the problems are related are France, Spain and Portugal. e. although the numbers are fairly small, Germany appears most frequently as the country to which problems relate under the subtopic ‘opening a bank account’, and Germans ask the most questions (not necessarily about their home country); f. despite the smallness of the numbers, Lithuanians are important in the enquiries in Ireland about social security; Technical Issues 12 It is worth underlining that in about 30% of cases experts have not chosen a specific subtopic from the drop down menu on the CSS form, and some subtopics are very little used (as are two topics). This suggests that: - the current choice of subtopics does not well reflect the variety of cases handled; and - guidance could be given to experts to encode more than one topic (or subtopic) when necessary. 13 Further points are discussed in Part II (Comments) of the Annex on methodology. We also make several extra points in the text itself, in particular at paragraphs 5.6, 5.10, 6.6, 7.12, and 7.21.

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Options Ahead 14 If further work of this type is envisaged, several options could be considered: - “shining the torch” to examine specifically chosen inter-related areas of interest; - developing the interface between statistical analysis and the casework based approach, including an analysis of interesting cases; - making wider use of the keyword search technique, and then to compare the results with the topic/subtopic classification; - looking at the areas where more cases need to be analysed in order to validate those results in this report which are based on relatively small numbers (eg in relation to certain small countries or less common themes); - measuring changes over time, for example how some of the basic statistics have changed over the years (or quarters or months); these two aspects could be combined, for example to provide an insight on a particular issue for a particular country, with a measurement of change over time); - providing a “marketing” profile for certain nationalities or economic groups to assist a promotional campaign. 15 Other areas based on keyword searching which could prove promising include: - examination of signposting destinations, eg cases referred to Solvit, to the Commission infringement procedure, or to specified sources of advice/information; - distinguishing cases which relate to problems in the implementation of EU law (rather than requests which primarily call for the provision of better factual orientation). The nature of the signposting may provide a useful indicator.

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REPORT 1 Enquiries and Population 1.1 Chart 1 shows the number of enquiries by each nationality. At first sight it suggests that the larger the country, the more the number of enquiries it generates. But Chart 2, which expresses the number of enquiries by nationality per head of population of the home country, gives a quite different picture. The numbers on which these charts are based are contained in Table A (after the charts), which is also the source of the chart in the Summary. Chart 1: Enquiries by Nationality

Luxembourger: 9Slovenian: 31Estonian: 39Cypriot: 41

Maltese: 49Czech: 65

Danish: 89Finnish: 108

Austrian: 140Slovakian: 141Irish: 142Lithuanian: 144Hungarian: 152

Swedish: 190Greek: 238

Portuguese: 271Belgian: 300

Polish: 394Spanish: 413

Dutch: 424

German: 864British: 776

French: 653Italian: 480

Latvian: 41

0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000

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Chart 2: Numbers of Enquiries per capita (EU countries only)

Czech: 6,3Italian: 8,3

Polish: 10,2Spanish: 10,3

French: 10,8British: 12,9All EU: 13,6

Hungarian: 15,2Slovenian: 15,4Danish: 16,4Austrian: 17,1Latvian: 17,8

Luxembourger: 19,5Finnish: 20,7Swedish: 21,1Greek: 22,4

Portuguese: 25,6Dutch: 26,0Slovakian: 26,0

Belgian: 29,0

Maltese: 123,0

German: 10,5

Estonian: 29,1Irish: 35,8

Lithuanian: 39,9Cypriot: 52,6

0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140

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Table A: Population and Enquiries per capita

Nationality Number of enquiries

percent

Population of home country/ Million

percent

Enquiry/ Population

A B C D E F Luxembourger 9 0.1 0.46 0.1 19.57 Slovenian 31 0.5 2.01 0.4 15.42 Estonian 39 0.6 1.34 0.3 29.10 Cypriot 41 0.7 0.78 0.2 52.56 Latvian 41 0.7 2.31 0.5 17.75 Maltese 49 0.8 0.4 0.1 122.50 Czech 65 1.0 10.25 2.2 6.34 Danish 89 1.4 5.41 1.2 16.45 Finnish 108 1.7 5.21 1.1 20.73 Austrian 140 2.3 8.17 1.8 17.14 Slovakian 141 2.3 5.42 1.2 26.01 Irish 142 2.3 3.97 0.9 35.77 Lithuanian 144 2.3 3.61 0.8 39.89 Hungarian 152 2.5 10.03 2.2 15.15 Swedish 190 3.1 8.99 2.0 21.13 Greek 238 3.8 10.65 2.3 22.35 Portuguese 271 4.4 10.57 2.3 25.64 Belgian 300 4.8 10.35 2.3 28.99 Polish 394 6.4 38.63 8.5 10.20 Spanish 413 6.7 40.28 8.8 10.25 Dutch 424 6.8 16.32 3.6 25.98 Italian 480 7.8 58.06 12.7 8.27 French 653 10.5 60.42 13.2 10.81 British 776 12.5 60.27 13.2 12.88 German 864 13.9 82.42 18.1 10.48 All EU 6194 100 456.33 100 13.57

1.2 While caution needs be exercised in interpreting the data for certain nationalities (in the period studied, Luxemburgers, Slovenians, Estonians, Cypriots, Latvians, Maltese, Czechs and Danes made fewer than 100 enquiries), Chart 2 shows that the highest number of enquiries per head is concentrated among the smaller countries, while the larger countries are all without exception below the EU average. 1.3 The Czech Republic is the only major exception to this result, as it has the lowest number of enquiries per head. Although it is known that Czechs are less mobile than several other EU10 nationalities, the result found here is clearly a matter for further examination.

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1.4 The overall result might suggest that nationals of the large countries are relatively less mobile than those of the small countries (even though in terms of the sheer number of enquiries they are very numerous), perhaps on account of a wider labour market (ie a wider range of job opportunities) at home. It could also be that citizens of larger countries are better informed and thus less likely to be intensive users of the CSS.

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2 Age Groups 2.1 Chart 3 presents the data on age group by country. The age groups for each country are expressed as a percentage of all enquiries for that country, thereby enabling comparisons between countries to be made. 2.2 The chart shows that in the age group of >65, the ten new Member State nationals are hardly represented (with the exception of only Maltese and Slovakians). This may reflect lower levels of access to the internet, but also perhaps a lower mobility due to lower living standards in retirement. 2.3 These nationals are however well represented among the 25-44 age group, and in some cases also among the 18-24 group (eg Latvians, Slovakians). Certain other nationalities are characterised by a high proportion of 25-44s, such as Spanish, Portuguese, Greek and Italian. This age group is highly likely to contain those in work or seeking work. 2.4 Higher proportions among the 45-64 age group are found among the British, Belgian, Dutch, Finnish Swedish and Maltese, and the Dutch have the highest proportion in the >65 group. A Dutch national, residing in Spain, receives pension benefits from the Netherlands. On January 1, 2006, the new Dutch Health Insurance Act has taken effect. The citizen is currently insured in Spain, and wonders why he has come under this new legislation which forces him to pay for social security services he has not asked for, and which he does not need, since the citizen is privately insured in Spain. 2.5 These proportions may reflect certain prosperity in or near retirement which leads to enquiries in the context of retirement/second homes. Other factors may be the higher access to the internet of this age group than in several other countries, and British enquiries may be favoured because of the prevalence of internet-based information being available in English. Chart 3: Nationality and Age Groups (on next page)

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18-24: 9,6%

18-24: 10,6%

18-24: 4,8%

18-24: 4,8%

18-24: 5,5%

18-24: 9,3%

18-24: 8,7%

18-24: 7,2%

18-24: 6,4%

18-24: 9,4%

18-24: 7,3%

18-24: 7,3%

18-24: 6,7%

18-24: 8,5%

18-24: 20,0%

18-24: 25,7%

18-24: 35,0%

18-24: 14,7%

18-24: 19,4%

18-24: 7,1%

18-24: 16,8%

18-24: 21,4%

25-44: 62,3%

25-44: 48,9%

25-44: 43,4%

25-44: 50,6%

25-44: 46,5%

25-44: 50,5%

25-44: 64,2%

25-44: 60,6%

25-44: 77,2%

25-44: 59,1%

25-44: 67,2%

25-44: 28,6%

25-44: 69,2%

25-44: 76,0%

25-44: 47,2%

25-44: 70,7%

25-44: 69,2%

25-44: 62,9%

25-44: 47,5%

25-44: 66,2%

25-44: 68,8%

25-44: 57,1%

25-44: 68,4%

25-44: 63,1%

45-64: 25,4%

45-64: 43,1%

45-64: 36,1%

45-64: 34,4%

45-64: 37,1%

45-64: 23,4%

45-64: 28,2%

45-64: 14,6%

45-64: 25,2%

45-64: 23,2%

45-64: 71,4%

45-64: 22,3%

45-64: 14,1%

45-64: 38,1%

45-64: 10,8%

45-64: 11,4%

45-64: 17,5%

45-64: 19,1%

45-64: 11,8%

45-64: 33,3%

45-64: 14,6%

45-64: 7,7%

>65: 2,6%

>65: 5,0%

>65: 8,8%

>65: 8,4%

>65: 13,6%

>65: 3,1%

>65: 3,7%

>65: 4,1%

>65: 1,8%

>65: 6,3%

>65: 2,3%

>65: 1,2%

>65: 3,2%

>65: 6,3%

>65: 2,4%

>65: 0,3%

>65: 0,8%

18-24: 28,5%

25-44: 75,0%

45-64: 22,0%

45-64: 35,5%

45-64: 3,6%

Austrian

Belgian

British

Danish

Dutch

Finnish

French

German

Greek

Irish

Italian

Luxembourger

Portuguese

Spanish

Swedish

Cypriot

Czech

Estonian

Latvian

Hungarian

Lithuanian

Maltese

Polish

Slovakian

Slovenian

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3 Economic category 3.1 In almost half (46.7%) of all enquiries an ‘employed’ category is indicated, while ‘homemaker, not seeking employment’ is the least chosen economic category. The three categories related to employment (employed, self-employed and unemployed) account for two-thirds of enquiries. The ‘other’ and ‘not available’ both together make a proportion of 11.6%. Chart 4: Economic Categories Recorded on the CSSDB

676609

656

471517

205170

2890

46,7%

2,7% 3,3%

8,3% 7,6%

10,6%9,8%

10,9%

Employed Homemaker, notseeking

employment

Not available Other Retired Self employed Student, trainee,Researcher, etc

Unemployed,Jobseeker

3.2 Chart 5 shows that there is little difference between the age and gender distributions, for example, in the ‘retired’ category and of the employed and the unemployed, although unemployed men tend to be older than unemployed women. Nevertheless, it is worth bearing in mind that the gender differences can be substantial (about 40% of enquiries come from women and about 60% from men). 3.3 The youngest age group (18-24) is relatively better represented among the student, trainee, researcher category, while the self-employed tend to be older. It is not surprising that the oldest age group is most prevalent among the retired category.

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A young Swedish national is planning to go to Spain to take a language course for 5 months. The school she is going to has not yet got CSN [national authority that handle Swedish financial aid for students] clearance. She has read on a Swedish student site that in order to be able to obtain a residence permit in Spain the school one is studying at has to be recognized by CSN. Chart 5: Economic Categories by Age and Gender (on next page)

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18

-24

: 8,0

%

18

-24

: 4,6

%

18

-24

: 4,9

%

18

-24

: 2,0

%

18

-24

: 1,8

%

18

-24

: 49

,2%

18

-24

: 39

,1%

18

-24

: 12

,9%

18

-24

: 7,1

%

25

-44

: 74

,3%

25

-44

: 70

,5%

25

-44

: 48

,6%

25

-44

: 47

,6%

25

-44

: 6,7

%

25

-44

: 2,5

%

25

-44

: 68

,9%

25

-44

: 57

,1%

25

-44

: 48

,0%

25

-44

: 54

,6%

25

-44

: 74

,6%

25

-44

: 64

,0%

45

-64

: 17

,2%

45

-64

: 43

,7% 4

5-6

4: 5

2,4

%

45

-64

: 50

,0%

45

-64

: 52

,0%

45

-64

: 28

,1%

45

-64

: 39

,1%

45

-64

: 2,5

%

45

-64

: 4,8

% 45

-64

: 12

,6%

45

-64

: 28

,3%

>6

5: 0

,5%

>6

5: 0

,3%

>6

5: 2

,8%

>6

5: 4

3,3

%

>6

5: 4

5,5

%

>6

5: 1

,0%

>6

5: 2

,0%

>6

5: 0

,3%

>6

5: 1

,5%

>6

5: 0

,5%

45

-64

: 24

,6%

F M F M F M F M F M F M

EmployedHomemaker, not seeking

employment Retired Self employedStudent, trainee,Researcher, etc Unemployed, Jobseeker

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4 Nationality and Residence 4.1 The aim of the country analysis is to provide an inter-related description of the three measures of “country” recorded in the CSSDB: - country(ies) to which the enquirer’s problem mainly relates - nationality of the enquirer, and - residence of the enquirer. 4.2 The first two charts look at each country to which the various “problems” relate according to nationality of enquirer and residence of enquirer. This enables us to identify the extent to which the “home” of the problem is accounted for more by people with that country’s nationality or by those residing there: - Chart 6 provides an overview of the pattern of enquiries about countries according to the residence and nationality of the enquirer for the aggregate of all 25 EU countries; - Chart 7 gives the detail for each country to which the enquirer has related their problem, so that the separate elements of residence and nationality for each country add to 100%. 4.3 Chart 6 shows that 17.5% of all enquiries come from resident nationals (ie they live in their home country) who ask questions which relate to their home country. Thus a significant minority of enquiries do not concern migrants. 4.4 The basic pattern across the 25 countries is that there is much higher share of enquiries about each of the countries concerned asked by non-nationals (73%) than by nationals (27%); and a higher share (56.7%) is asked by those who live elsewhere (ie other than in the country about which the question is put) than those who are resident (43.3%). Chart 7 brings this pattern out clearly on a country by country basis.

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Chart 6: Enquiries about countries: Residence and Nationality at EU level

From non-national living elsewhere

47,2%

From resident non-national25,8%

From national living elsewhere9,5%

From resident national17,5%

Chart 7: Enquiries about Countries: Residence and Nationality – at Country Level2 (on next page)

2 Note: for eight countries there were fewer than 100 enquiries (those countries listed from Luxembourg to the foot of the table: for details see Table A).

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9,5%

6,8%

2,2%

17,1%

19,0%

7,5%

13,1%

3,1%

12,3%

9,8%

1,3%

10,4%

21,5%

7,3%

7,2%

16,0%

11,9%

7,2%

15,4%

11,1%

6,9%

9,4%

6,9%

9,5%

7,1%

9,1%

15,2%

51,4%

25,3%

35,0%

20,6%

2,8%

13,0%

25,3%

16,3%

18,1%

28,0%

26,5%

13,8%

10,8%

28,8%

24,5%

12,8%

12,3%

18,9%

11,5%

10,7%

21,7%

17,5%

27,1%

43,0%

35,0%

42,1%

56,5%

47,9%

49,7%

42,6%

42,5%

43,0%

59,1%

46,8%

38,0%

39,2%

42,7%

48,2%

51,6%

53,2%

51,9%

44,5%

47,2%

9,5%

25,0%

13,0%

4,3%

12,7%

22,5%

24,3%

27,1%

27,5%

14,4%

24,2%

38,1%

19,2%

9,0%

19,8%

35,2%

17,2%

24,5%

37,3%

24,2%

18,4%

28,4%

28,1%

24,9%

32,8%

25,8%

8,9%

19,3%

59,1%

41,0%

70,1%

69,6%

73,8%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%

Latvia

Slovenia

Estonia

Lithuania

Slovakia

Malta

Finland

Luxembourg

Czech Republic

Hungary

Denmark

Cyprus

Sweden

Poland

Austria

Ireland

Portugal

Greece

Belgium

Netherlands

Italy

Spain

United Kingdom

Germany

France

EU From resident non-nationalFrom non-national living elsewhere

From resident nationalFrom national living elsewhere

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4.5 It appears that the problems about which the CSS is contacted are mainly prospective or retrospective (ie before or after - rather than during - a move): residence as such is not necessarily the main driver of problems for non-nationals. Belgium is an exception to this generalisation, as can be seen from Chart 7 where the difference between enquiries from non-nationals residing and not residing in the country is the smallest (similar: Cyprus). Further research could identify where the ‘residence’ factor appears among particular topics/subtopics for Belgium (see also Chart 8). 4.6 Chart 7 shows that, in general, the proportion of enquiries from nationals who live in their home country is greater than from those who live elsewhere in the EU, although the Netherlands and Latvia are exceptions. Luxembourg is characterised by a very low proportion of nationals (2.8%) relating questions to Luxembourg. Lithuania is also different in that a very high share (51.4%) of Lithuanian nationals relates their problems to their own country. Further research might look at particular problems Lithuanian nationals have in relation to their own country. A Lithuanian national married her husband, an Indian national, in Sweden. The husband received a Swedish residence permit. The couple intended to visit Lithuania and, in order to obtain a visa for the husband as a family member of EU citizen, contacted Lithuanian embassy in Sweden. The husband was asked to pay for his tourist visa application and was explained that they should be married in Lithuania or should be registered in Lithuania for being able to apply for visa free of charge. 4.7 We now “shine the torch” to look at the nationality of enquirers who claim that their problem arises (at least in part) in three selected countries - Belgium (Chart 8), Cyprus (Chart 9), Czech Republic (Chart 10). For Belgium we find that the great majority of enquiries from non-nationals come from nationalities which have borders with Belgium: French, Dutch and Germans account for more than 38%. Among other nationalities, it is interesting to see that Polish people have a relatively high share (6.5%).

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Chart 8: Nationality of Enquirers specifying Belgium

Cypriot: 0,24%Danish: 0,24%Estonian: 0,24%Latvian: 0,24%

Maltese: 0,24%Finnish: 0,48%Slovenian: 0,48%Hungarian: 0,72%Irish: 0,72%

Austrian: 1,20%Czech: 1,20%

Slovakian: 2,16%Swedish: 2,40%

Greek: 2,88%Portuguese: 3,13%

Italian: 3,85%Lithuanian: 4,09%

Spanish: 4,57%British: 5,53%

Polish: 6,49%

Luxembourger: 0,24%

German: 8,17%Dutch: 10,58%

French: 18,51%Belgian: 21,39%

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25%

4.8 The high proportion of non-nationals in the Belgian profile could reflect: - the concentration of particular problems encountered in Belgium (further research on topics/subtopics could help) - the attraction of Belgium, particularly for “European” jobs 4.9 Another variation in the nationality profiles where one or more nationality predominates can be seen from the example of Cyprus where British people have a very high proportion of enquiries concerning Cyprus (39%). A British national is retired and currently living in Cyprus. She would like to know how she can be covered medically in Cyprus and what is the procedure?

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Chart 9: Nationality of Enquirers specifying Cyprus

Austrian: 0,71%

Finnish: 0,71%

French: 0,71%

Slovakian: 0,71%

Swedish: 1,42%

Czech: 2,13%

Irish: 2,13%

Latvian: 2,13%

Italian: 2,84%

Spanish: 2,84%

Dutch: 3,55%

German: 3,55%

Greek: 9,22%

Lithuanian: 1,42%

Polish: 5,67%

Cypriot: 21,28%

British: 39,01%

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45%

4.10 There are several aspects of this “predominance”. From other charts3, we already know that: - the British, along with the French and Germans, account for a large proportion of enquiries about countries other than their own. This suggests that these nationalities may be very mobile, and know how to ask about their rights; it may be however that this predominance is equally explicable by the size of the population and language prevalence; - there is a tendency of British people migrating to the south: their proportion is the highest compared to other nationalities not only for enquiries about Cyprus, but also in respect of Greece, Malta, Spain and France. 4.11 From the country by country search we also see two more trends, which suggest: - cross-border aspects (e.g. Hungary-Austria-Germany; Poland-Germany); The mother of a German national lives in Germany and is covered by the German health insurance. She has to undergo a complicated operation and therefore they planned that the operation should take place in Austria. However, the German sick fund would only pay 870 Euro, what would be the costs in Germany all medical treatment included. The costs of the operation in Austria would be 1350 Euro. They would like to know if this information is correct and if something could be done about it. 3 For reasons of space, not all the charts are included in this document (though available on request).

22

- economic migration (eg Ireland: 10.2% Poles and 8.4% Lithuanians; the UK: 10.2% Poles). 4.12 The research shows that there is a high proportion of the ‘old’ Europeans in the ‘new’ Member States: for example, in Slovenia (British and Italians), Slovakia (French), Lithuania (Germans), Latvia (British and Germans). 4.13 For certain countries the ‘other’ nationality category (ie other than EU) is important. The Czech Republic (see Chart 10 below) and Latvia have the ‘other’ nationality at the top of the list. This is likely to reflect, for example, difficulties faced by minorities and/or third country national problems in these countries (eg in Latvia – ethnic Russian ‘non-citizens’ or ‘aliens’ problem). An enquirer has Russian Federation citizenship and residence permit in Latvia, as her husband has Latvian citizenship. The husband, being the European Union citizen, does not require any visas to travel within EU. She would like to know if travelling with her husband or by herself, she needs a visa for other EU countries. Chart 10: Nationality of Enquirers specifying Czech Republic

Finnish: 0,77%

Irish: 0,77%

Portuguese: 0,77%

Danish: 1,54%

Swedish: 1,54%

Austrian: 2,31%

Belgian: 2,31%

Lithuanian: 2,31%

Greek: 3,08%

Italian: 3,85%

Spanish: 3,85%

Dutch: 4,62%

British: 5,38%

Polish: 6,15%

French: 6,92%

Slovakian: 6,92%

German: 7,69%

Other: 21,54%

Czech: 16,15%

Slovenian: 1,54%

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25%

23

5 Topics Introduction 5.1 Chart 11 shows the distribution of enquiries according to the topics selected by experts from the choice available on the database. In nearly all cases, enquiries are recorded under a single topic: for the 6905 enquiries covered by this report 7326 topics were recorded. 5.2 Most enquiries are related to ‘Working in another country of the EU’ and ‘Living in another country of the EU’, reflecting the importance of the need to work and freedom of movement in the EU (we note that, as the subtopic ‘Right of residence’ is often selected under topic ‘Working’, it may be that ‘Living’ as a topic is under-represented). The balance is made up from the other seven topics, with two of them being barely used (‘Equal rights and opportunities for men and women in the European Union’ and ‘Data protection in the European Union’). Nonetheless the following example brings both ‘data protection’ and ‘working’ into play. An enquirer wishes to apply by post for a job with a French company which handles all applications in Germany, Berlin. The application will be entered on a centralised computer system. The candidate will then receive an acknowledgement that his/her application has been encoded together with a request to confirm the application by registering on the company’s website and giving the details required by it. To enable this, an identification number and a password will be provided. Having done this, the applicant is then informed about his/her rights to personal data protection, which must be accepted before being able to register and save his computerised dossier. The citizen is only told after the event that, although he has applied to a French company, his dossier will be sent to Germany and his details dealt with on computer. From that time, is it possible to say that his right to personal data protection is being respected?

24

Chart 11: Topics Recorded on the CSSDB

5,9% 6,9% 8,1% 11,3% 27,9% 38,1%0,1% 0,2% 1,7%122

429502

595

825

2047

2789

134

Dataprotection inthe european

union

Equal rightsand

opportunitiesfor men and

women in theeuropean

union

Other Enforcing yourrights in the

singleeuropeanmarket

Studying,training and

doing researchin another

country of theeuropean

union

Buying goodsand services in

the singleeuropeanmarket

Travelling inanother


union

Living inanother


union

Working inanother


union

I ‘Working’ 5.3 Chart 12 sets out the number of enquiries by nationality related to the topic4 ‘Working in another EU Country’. They are also expressed as percentages of the total number of such enquiries for the EU as a whole. 5.4 German, French, British and Polish people make most of the enquiries concerning working in other EU countries. Once again, however, there is a similar tendency as noted in para 1.2 (and Charts 1 and 2) whereby the dominance of certain nationalities is less prevalent when their population share is taken into account. For example, the Polish share of “working” enquiries is greater than their share of all enquiries (see columns C and E of Table A for the comparative data), as is the French and German share. Of the nationalities with a greater than proportionate share include Hungarian, Slovakian, Lithuanian and Czech, while nationalities with a less than proportionate share include British, Portuguese, Greek, Irish, Finish, Danish, Maltese and Cypriot. Compared to traditional patterns, the relatively greater share of French and Germans is new, while the relatively lower share of Portuguese, Irish and Greek also represents something of a change. Chart 12: Topic ‘Working’ and Nationality (on next page)

4 While all topics have been examined, only a selection of topics is presented here.

25

33

34

48

56

58

67

78

83

91

127

170

176

194

208

267

392

23

20

89

288

3

5

8

11

12

0,8%

0,9%

1,3%

1,3%

1,9%

2,2%

2,3%

2,6%

3,1%

3,3%

3,5%

3,6%

5,0%

6,7%

6,9%

7,6%

8,2%

10,5%

11,3%

15,4%

0,1%

0,2%

0,3%

0,4%

0,5%

Cypriot

Luxembourger

Maltese

Estonian

Slovenian

Danish

Latvian

Finnish

Czech

Irish

Greek

Austrian

Lithuanian

Slovakian

Swedish

Portuguese

Hungarian

Belgian

Dutch

Spanish

Italian

Polish

British

French

German

26

II Enforcing your rights in the single European market 5.5 Particular attention has been paid to the topic ‘enforcing your rights in the single European market’ because of the potential interest of this category to provide evidence of misapplication of EU law. This topic is however only infrequently selected by the legal experts, making a share of only 5.9% among other topics (see Chart 11). The following example illustrates the type of issue which is presented. A Portuguese national is working in Germany but his family lives in Portugal. He is a beneficiary of AOK - the sickness insurance in Germany, where he has also registered his family. His wife needed urgent medical treatment and as they did not have the time to ask for permission for the surgery to the AOK in Germany nor to wait for a vacancy at the Portuguese public hospital, they decided to contact a private hospital for the wife to undertake the surgery where she was immediately operated. In Germany, the citizen has contacted the AOK that told him that the authority to reimburse the costs of the surgery is the Portuguese Social Security. In Portugal, the service of the social security office for European affairs said that the reimbursement should be given by AOK in Germany. He would like to know who is eligible to pay the costs. 5.6 In our view, this may represent a degree of undercounting. While there is an enforcement aspect to many cases, experts tend to record a case under ‘enforcing’ only when the other topics are not obviously suitable. This is partly because all the other items in the list of topics are “vertical” (ie content related) while ‘enforcing’ is “horizontal” (ie characteristic related), and partly because experts have not been instructed to make multiple entries for topics. 5.7 Chart 13 shows that among the subtopics, ‘judicial procedures’, ‘internal administrative procedures’ and ‘non-judicial procedures’ are selected for most enquiries. As ‘enforcing’ is likely to be chosen if it is the object of the enquiry (rather than the consequence of answering it), this may go some way to explain the relatively high proportion of the subtopic ‘judicial procedures’ given that the CSS is likely to prefer administrative resolution methods.

27

Chart13: Enforcement - Subtopics

10

42

50

105

120

154

Enforcing your rights in thesingle European market

Legal aid Other Non-judicial procedures Internal administrativeprocedures

Judicial procedures

Chart 14: Enforcement - Subtopics by Country -% (on next page) This chart gives the three main subtopics for each country to which the problem relates on the basis that the percentages for each subtopic add to 100% for the EU as a whole. Chart 15: Enforcement Subtopics - Numbers (on following page) This chart gives the actual number of enquiries.

28

Internal admin procedures 0,8%



















Judicial procedures; 0,6%





















Non-judicial procedures; 0,9%



















Latvia

Lithuania

Slovakia

Slovenia

Malta

Czech Republic

Luxembourg

Finland

Denmark

Ireland

Sweden

Cyprus

Hungary

Poland

Greece

Netherlands

Portugal

Austria

Italy

Belgium

United Kingdom

Spain

Germany

France

29

Internal admin. procedures 1



















Judicial procedures; 1





















Non-judicial procedures; 1



















Latvia

Lithuania

Slovakia

Slovenia

Malta

Czech Republic

Luxembourg

Finland

Denmark

Ireland

Sweden

Cyprus

Hungary

Poland

Greece

Netherlands

Portugal

Austria

Italy

Belgium

United Kingdom

Spain

Germany

France

30

5.8 Taking into account their share of EU population, countries which have a greater than proportionate share of the subtopics are as follows: - ‘judicial procedures’: Spain, Austria, Germany, Netherlands; - ‘non-judicial procedures’: France, Belgium, Portugal, Netherlands, Cyprus; - ‘internal administrative procedures’: Spain, Belgium, Austria, Hungary, Cyprus, Ireland. This example gives a flavour of the caseload: A Belgian national has a daughter, whose mother is French. He would like to know if there are any agreements between France and Belgium concerning alimony, in particular if it is possible that maintenance obligations due in France could be seized on his revenue in Belgium. 5.9 We observe that the borderline between non-judicial and administrative procedures may not represent a cut and dried distinction in certain countries (and perhaps for some experts). III Enlargement 5.10 On the CSS web form ‘enlargement’ appears as a separate category which experts can chose in addition to the topics. We observe that it is easier to encode a case with a selected topic and ‘enlargement’ than it is in the circumstances described in the preceding paragraphs (‘enforcing’). When it is included alongside other topics, ‘enlargement’ shows up as the third most important topic (14%). It should be noted that the original presentation of the distribution of topics in Chart 11 contained 9 topics, whereas Chart 16 contains 10 topics Chart 16: Enlargement in the Context of other Topics

31

0,0% 0,2%1,4%

5,0%5,9%

7,0%

9,7%

14,0%

24,0%

32,7%

Dataprotection inthe european

union

Equal rightsand

opportunitiesfor men and

women in theeuropean

union

Other Enforcing yourrights in the

singleeuropean

market

Studying,training and

doing researchin another


union

Buying goodsand services in

the singleeuropean

market

Travelling inanother


union

Enlargement Living inanother


union

Working inanother


union

Chart 17: Subtopics Related to Enlargement

0,1%0,1%0,1%0,1%0,2%0,2%

0,4%0,5%0,5%0,5%

0,7%0,8%0,8%

1,1%1,4%

1,7%1,9%2,0%2,0%2,1%

2,4%2,4%

3,9%4,7%

5,3%5,7%

7,0%7,1%

9,7%14,1%

16,3%

2,8%

1,5%

Consular protection for the citizens of the European UnionPackage travel

Training and mobility of researchersUnfair terms

Equal rights and opportunities for men and women in the European UnionLegal aid

Right to vote and stand as a candidate in European parliament electionsMotor vehicle insurance

Opening a bank account in another member stateCross-border workers

Non-judicial proceduresNotifying the authorities of your presence in another EU member state

Enforcing your rights in the single European marketNational education systems

Internal administrative proceduresRegulated professions

Judicial proceduresOther

Motor vehicle taxType-approval and registration of motor vehicles

Looking for workStudying, training and doing research in another country of the European union

Driving licencesObtaining a visa for members of your family who are not nationals of an EU member state

Welfare benefitsTaxes

Buying goods and services in the single European marketWorking in another country of the European union

Living in another country of the European UnionTravelling in another country of the European Union

Social securityRight of residence

Right of access to employment

32

5.11 Examination of subtopics within the category ‘enlargement’ shows that ‘access to employment’ is the most popular subtopic (16.3%), whereas for all enquiries it accounts for only 8.0%. While ‘right of residence’ is accounts for a similar proportion of enquiries among both groups, ‘social security’ and ‘taxes’ are more important among all enquiries than among enlargement enquiries. A national of one of the 8 ‘new’ Member States, the nationals of which transitional labour market restrictions are applicable to, who resides in the UK, would like to go to France to work there. She saw that there are 62 jobs, where the restrictions are raised, in particular for the job of chambermaid. The citizen would like to know if she must make preliminary steps or can postulate directly with the employers. 5.12 Chart 17 can be compared to chart 18 (see next chapter) which gives the distribution of subtopics for all enquiries (irrespective of the topic chosen). The comparison shows that there is a much greater emphasis on ‘access to employment’ among the enquiries on enlargement (16.3% compared to 8.0%), and much less emphasis on ‘social security’ (9.7% compared to 13.7%) and ‘taxes’ (4.7 compared to 6.7%).

33

6 Subtopics - Overview 6.1 The way in which we have established the data for subtopics is set out in the Annex, and particular attention is drawn to the “merger” of certain subtopics and the “grouping” of others. Chart 18: Subtopics Recorded on the CSSDB

1,10%1,26%1,43%1,46%1,49%1,58%1,84%

2,20%2,26%2,49%2,81%2,89%3,09%3,23%

4,47%5,66%

6,41%6,73%

7,56%8,02%

13,70%14,12%

0,72%

0,65%0,56%0,50%0,48%

0,45%

0,26%0,16%0,10%0,08%0,07%

92105

120122125132

154184189

208235242

258270

374473

536563

632671

11461181

0,72% - 60

0,3% - 22

0,6% - 540,6% - 470,5% - 420,5% - 400,5% - 38

0,2% - 130,1% - 80,1% - 70,1% - 6Overbooking of airline seats

Package travelTraining and mobility of researchers

Equal rights and opportunities for men and women in the European UnionRight to vote and stand as a candidate in European parliament elections

Unfair termsOpening a bank account in another member state

Legal aidMotor vehicle insurance

Notifying the authorities of your presence in another EU member stateEnforcing your rights in the single European market

Cross-border workersNon-judicial procedures

Internal administrative proceduresOther

National education systemsLooking for work

Judicial proceduresMotor vehicle tax

Driving licencesStudying, training and doing research in another country of the European union

Regulated professionsObtaining a visa for members of your family who are not nationals of an EU member state

Welfare benefitsType-approval and registration of motor vehicles

Working in another country of the European unionBuying goods and services in the single European market

Travelling in another country of the European UnionTaxes

Living in another country of the European UnionRight of access to employment

Social securityRight of residence

6.2 The chart shows a number of enquiries for each defined subtopic. ‘Right of residence’ concerns the largest proportion of citizens – 14.1%, followed by ‘social security’ – 13.7%, ‘right of access to employment’ – 8%. The next most selected subtopic is ‘living in another EU country’ (in other words, some unspecified aspect of ‘living’ for which none of the listed subtopics was chosen) followed by ‘taxes’ – 6.7%. 6.3 It is worth noting that the volume of cases where only a topic is chosen, ie where no subtopic is specified, is significant. When ‘Other’ as a topic is included – which necessarily has no subtopic - the total of unspecified subtopics amounts to 30.1% of cases.

34

Table B: Proportion of Cases with no Subtopic Topic

% of all cases

Living 7.6 Travelling 6.4 Working 5.7 Buying goods 5.7 Studying etc 2.5 Enforcing rights 0.7 Subtotal 28.6 Topic ‘Other’ 1.5 Total 30.1 6.4 This large residue of enquiries could be tackled in two ways: - to review the ‘other’ categories and create additional topics/subtopics. For example, after researching the unspecified subtopic ‘travelling in another country of the European Union’ many enquiries could be coded under a separate subtopic called ‘travel documents’; A Greek national has found on the website of the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs some information regarding travelling within the Schengen area and in the UK and Ireland. He wants to know further clarifications on whether he can travel there without an ID or a passport.

- alternatively a free choice (open-ended) option on the CSS web form could be

introduced allowing legal experts to indicate their own category. 6.5 Another aspect of the distribution of subtopics is the number for which there are no entries (canvassing5), or very few entries (misleading advertising, product safety, consular protection, timeshares, training of researchers, package travel, overbooking of airline seats). While this may reflect the small number of enquiries, it may also reflect an absence of selection by the experts (for example, the unspecified ‘buying’ subtopic accounts for 5.7% of total) because the subtopic choice is not sufficient to deal with the variety of cases.

5 Therefore this subtopic does not appear in any of charts.

35

6.6 The subtopic ‘overbooking of airline seats’ is an example: it appears to be a subtopic for which the number of enquiries is relatively small when account is taken of the impact of recent EU-wide measures (and some legal experts claim that cases involving “airlines” are quite frequent). It seems that rather little use is made of this box because the enquiries relating to airline travel include other features such as loss of luggage and the impact of delays which cause experts to code these cases under the ‘other’ subtopic. A Greek national inquires about her rights in case of a flight delay over 9 hours. She was flying from Greece to Italy and for the first 4 hours nobody was there from the airline company to inform people about the delay.

36

7 Subtopics - Detail I The Four Most Frequently Selected Subtopics 7.1 The next chart sets out the four main named subtopics by nationality (leaving aside the unspecified ‘living’ subtopic), where the percentages give the share of each of the subtopics for each nationality. Chart 19: The Four Main Subtopics by Nationality (on next page)

37

Right of access to employment: 46,9%






















Right of residence: 100,0%























Social security: 5,3%





















Taxes: 9,4%

Taxes: 5,3%

Taxes: 13,7%

Taxes: 3,1%

Taxes: 8,6%

Taxes: 12,5%

Taxes: 13,2%

Taxes: 19,0%

Taxes: 35,7%

Taxes: 9,6%

Taxes: 24,0%

Taxes: 19,2%

Taxes: 25,6%

Taxes: 17,5%

Taxes: 12,8%

Taxes: 15,5%

Taxes: 20,6%

Taxes: 13,3%

Taxes: 13,7%

Taxes: 16,1%

Taxes: 21,0%

Taxes: 18,2%

Taxes: 17,7%



Right of residence: 26,0%Social security: 50,0%



Cypriot

Czech

Estonian

Hungarian

Latvian

Lithuanian

Maltese

Polish

Slovakian

Slovenian

Austrian

Belgian

British

Danish

Dutch

Finnish

French

German

Greek

Irish

Italian

Luxembourger

Portuguese

Spanish

Swedish

EU-1

0EU

-15

38

7.2 The share of enquiries about ‘social security’ is high for Swedes, French, Dutch and Austrians, and about right of residence for Greeks, Danes and Latvians. While Estonians and Poles are concerned about ‘right of access to employment’, this is of very much less concern to Swedes. Those least concerned about ‘taxes’ are Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, and Czechs. 7.3 Another way of looking at some of this data is shown in Chart 20. Chart 20: Right of Access to Employment by Nationality

3

3

6

6

8

9

11

12

14

15

15

16

19

22

28

40

42

44

58

69

93

21

1 -

0,5%

0,5%

1,1%

1,1%

1,4%

1,6%

2,0%

2,2%

2,5%

2,7%

2,7%

2,9%

3,4%

3,8%

3,9%

5,0%

7,2%

7,5%

7,9%

10,4%

12,4%

16,7%

2 - 0,4%

0,2%Slovenian

Maltese

Danish

Luxembourger

Finnish

Swedish

Estonian

Latvian

Austrian

Irish

Greek

Czech

Dutch

Portuguese

Belgian

Lithuanian

Slovakian

Hungarian

Spanish

British

Italian

French

German

Polish

7.4 On the top of the ‘right of access to employment’ in terms of numbers of questions appear Polish nationals (related mostly to France, Germany and Belgium). In fact the Polish share of this subtopic is very much greater than the Polish share of all enquiries (for comparison, see the shares set out in Table A). Other nationalities with a relatively high share include Hungarians, Slovaks and Lithuanians. The British share is relatively low.

39

A Polish national found a company in Germany which wishes to employ him. However, the German employment service refuses him a work permit stating that work may be carried out by a German employee. He contacted Citizens’ Signpost Service in order to find out if there is any other way in which he could take up employment with the company that offers him the post. There are, however, a significant number of enquiries about access to employment from nationals of EU15 member states which is perhaps surprising, and could merit further analysis. 7.5 In total numbers of enquiries German nationals are asking most about ‘social security’ and ‘taxes’. A German national, obtains a company pension in Germany on which he pays taxes there. As he resides in France longer than six months per year, French tax authorities demand that he pays taxes on his company pension in France instead (retroactively for the past three years). They told him to apply to German tax authorities for a refund of the taxes paid during these years in Germany. He wants to know about double taxation and if he can refuse to pay in France. 7.6 ‘Right of residence’ has the majority of questions coming from British nationals. A British national, living and working in Cyprus, has never registered at the immigration office in Cyprus. She is asking if she nevertheless should register her residence. Some people have told her that she should and some said - not because Cyprus is in the EU. 7.7 The next chart shows the number of enquiries for the four main subtopics distributed according to the country to which the problem relates. 7.8 France is the country which is chosen most often as a problem country by EU citizens in all four categories, closely followed by Germany (except in respect of access to employment questions), then by Spain and the UK. Belgium receives relatively high numbers of questions, especially in relation to ‘right of residence’ and ‘social security’. A special focus on Belgium is given in Chart 25. Chart 21: Four Subtopics by Country of Problem (on next page)

40

Right of access to employment: 5






















Right of residence: 27
























Social security: 3

Social security: 6

Social security: 26

Social security: 3

Social security: 3

Social security: 4

Social security: 17

Social security: 14

Social security: 3

Social security: 41

Social security: 101

Social security: 23

Social security: 16

Social security: 35

Social security: 51

Social security: 70

Social security: 27


Social security: 25


Social security: 33

Taxes: 6

Taxes: 3

Taxes: 2

Taxes: 8

Taxes: 2

Taxes: 2

Taxes: 1

Taxes: 24

Taxes: 8

Taxes: 5

Taxes: 19

Taxes: 56

Taxes: 14

Taxes: 8

Taxes: 83

Taxes: 83

Taxes: 27

Taxes: 19

Taxes: 39

Taxes: 8

Taxes: 49

Taxes: 25

Taxes: 63

Taxes: 20

Taxes: 65

Access to employment: 124

Right of access to employment:70





Social security: 16


Cyprus

Czech Republic

Estonia

Hungary

Latvia

Lithuania

Malta

Poland

Slovakia

Slovenia

Austria

Belgium

Denmark

Finland

France

Germany

Greece

Ireland

Italy

Luxembourg

Netherlands

Portugal

Spain

Sweden

United Kingdom

41

. 7.9 There is a much higher proportion of EU15 nationals relating their questions to Belgium than EU10 nationals. Nonetheless the pattern is different: EU10 nationals are asking relatively more questions in relation to access to employment and residence rights, than to social security and taxes, as compared to EU15 nationals. Chart 22: Four Main Subtopics: Focus on Belgium

EU-10: 18 EU-10: 17

EU-10: 5

EU-15: 21

EU-15: 77

EU-15: 96

EU-15: 56

Right of access to employment Right of residence Social security Taxes

A citizen found some information in internet, which says that “if you are a national of a new EU Member State and intend to take up paid employment in Belgium for a period of at least a year, you must apply for authorisation for temporary residence. To obtain this authorisation, you must submit a work permit. When you have worked on a regular and continuous basis for 12 months or more, you will have free access to the labour market and you will no longer require your work permit”. The citizen has been working in Belgium for two consecutive years. Last year, her employer renewed the work permit. She called the local Belgian authorities, and was told that the employer still has to apply for a work permit. She thinks that this is going against EU law.

42

II Social Security and Welfare Benefits 7.10 The majority of questions about ‘social security’ come from German, French, British and Dutch nationals; and about ‘welfare benefits’ from German, Polish and British nationals. Chart 23: Social Security and Welfare Benefits by Nationality

1

2

1

3

7

8

11

18

20

21

16

28

24

38

34

44

67

73

89

108

140

127

1

1

2

2

6

3

1

3

13

7

18

4

9

18

28

8

5

13

17

8

39176

48

44

Estonian

Slovenian

Luxembourger

Maltese

Latvian

Czech

Danish

Finnish

Greek

Austrian

Lithuanian

Slovakian

Irish

Portuguese

Hungarian

Swedish

Polish

Spanish

Belgian

Italian

Dutch

French

British

German

Welfare benefits

Social security

7.11 Chart 24 shows that EU citizens relate their questions about ‘social security’ mainly to France, Germany and the UK (also Spain, the Netherlands and Belgium). As regards ‘welfare benefits’ they are related mainly to Germany, the UK and France (followed by Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland and Sweden). Chart 24: Social Security and Welfare Benefits by Country of Problem

43

3

3

3

4

6

4

14

16

22

24

25

18

29

26

39

34

52

74

104

123

128

149

179

1

3

1

2

5

4

12

3

7

1

4

20

20

11

11

25

26

47

41

184

57

28

Latvia

Lithuania

Slovenia

Malta

Estonia

Cyprus

Slovakia

Finland

Czech Republic

Denmark

Portugal

Poland

Luxembourg

Hungary

Greece

Austria

Sweden

Ireland

Italy

Belgium

Netherlands

Spain

United Kingdom

France

Germany

Welfare benefits

Social security

A French national lives in France. Her children have Belgian and French nationalities. Their father lives in Belgium, therefore the whole family would like to go and live there. In France, she receives parental leave for the next 2 years from her ‘caisse d'allocations familiales’. She would like to know if she will keep receiving this, and if she needs to hand over some documents to a service in Belgium. The citizen also wonders, what will happen with her health care as she is a diabetic and need a constant care. Does she need to sign up at a Belgian insurance institution and how? 7.12 We note that many enquiries related to ‘social security’ involve a question of ‘cross-border worker’ (a subtopic) and ‘posted worker’. We also note that ‘cross-border worker’ subtopic is little used as shown by the low rate of selection by the legal experts (1.1%, see Chart 18), and that ‘posted worker’ is not mentioned in the CSS form at all and is not identifiable. We suggest that a separate category of a ‘cross-border worker’ and ‘posted worker’ could be introduced on the same basis as the category ‘enlargement’, so as to make it easier to identify such cases and analyse the issues which lie behind these cases. A citizen is more than 2 years permanent employer of a city of London Consultant and would like to know, if he could work in France for about 4-5 months in a row (and not more), while keeping his English law employee contract. In case, it is not possible, he would like to know the legal route to organise it. He would also have a particular concern on the insurance law applicable.

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A Slovak national works in Austria and is a cross-boarder worker. Social security contributions, health insurance and tax payments she has to pay into the Austrian system. She would like to know, what her rights and entitlement are if she gets pregnant in relation to maternity benefits during pregnancy and after delivering a child, and how she should proceed. Focus on Country: Ireland 7.13 Despite the relatively small numbers, it appears that Ireland, as a country to which the problem relates, has the highest proportion of Italian, Irish, German, Polish and Lithuanian nationals asking about ‘social security’; and, concerning ‘welfare benefits’ -Lithuanian, Irish and Polish nationals. Chart 25: Social Security and Welfare Benefits: Ireland

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Welfare benefits

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Focus on Nationality: Lithuanians 7.14 Lithuanian nationals mainly relate their questions about ‘social security’ and ‘welfare benefits’ to Ireland.

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Chart 26: Social Security and Welfare Benefits: Lithuanians

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France

Luxembourg

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Ireland

Welfare benefits

Social security

A Lithuanian national is working in Ireland. He is a widower and has three children, who soon will move to live in Ireland with him. He wishes to know whether his children would be entitled to any benefits in Ireland. III Motor Vehicles 7.15 The main volume of enquiries about ‘motor vehicles’ involves the following countries:

- about ‘motor vehicle insurance’ – the UK and France; - about ‘motor vehicle tax’ – Greece and Spain (similar Portugal, Germany and

Malta); - about ‘type-approval and registration of motor vehicles – France, Spain,

Portugal, Greece and Italy. Chart 27: Motor Vehicle Subtopics by Country of Problem (on next page)

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Estonia

Latvia

Czech Republic

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Slovakia

Slovenia

Lithuania

Hungary

Poland

Sweden

Finland

Malta

Cyprus

Denmark

Netherlands

Belgium

Ireland

Italy

Germany

United Kingdom

Portugal

Greece

Spain

France

Type-approval and registration of motor vehicles

Motor vehicle tax

Motor vehicle insurance

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The father of a citizen, a pensioner, spends regularly several months in Portugal. At present he has a car which has passed a technical control [MOT test], has an insurance and which is registered in France. The father is resident in France. The Portuguese State wants to seize the car because it has been more than 6 months since he drove the car there. 7.16 Nonetheless, it needs to be noted that when size of country is taken into account, motor vehicle tax is a major problem in Cyprus (and also in Finland and Hungary to some extent). 7.17 The majority of enquiries concerning ‘motor vehicle insurance’, ‘motor vehicle tax’ and ‘type-approval and registration of motor vehicles’ come from British nationals. Chart 28: Motor Vehicle Subtopics by Nationality (on next page)

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Irish

Greek

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Motor vehicle tax


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7.18 British nationals relate their questions of ‘motor vehicle insurance’ mainly to the UK. As regards motor vehicle tax’, they are related to Cyprus, Greece, Spain and Malta, and for ‘type-approval and registration of motor vehicles’ they are related to France and Spain (also Greece). Chart 29: Motor Vehicle Subtopics: Enquiries from Britons

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A British national has chosen to live in Spain and wishes to register his car there. He was told that he must pay import duty and matriculation costs between 2000 and 5000 euros if he wishes to register the car in Spain. Having in the past taken a Spanish car to England and registering it without undue cost he cannot understand, why will Spain not allow him to do the same. A British national, who has moved to Greece, has been informed by the Greek Ministry of Transport that he is not allowed to purchase a car with Greek registration plates, unless he applies for a residence permit. The citizen thinks that the permit, which Greece is demanding from him, in order to merely purchase a car in Greece, is contradicting the whole concept of the European Union.

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IV Opening a Bank Account in Another Member State 7.19 The subtopic ‘opening a bank account in another Member State’ is a good example of an interesting area where the number of cases is rather small. Nonetheless, Germany, the UK, Italy, Hungary and the Netherlands appear with the highest number of related questions. Netherlands and Sweden are also significant when size of country is taken into account. Chart 30: Bank Account by Country of Problem

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A British national long-term resident in Germany has a savings account with the Chelsea Building Society in the UK. He has been informed by the building society that they are closing down this type of account and that he can either have the money deposited there returned to him or transferred to one of their other types of existing accounts. He would like the money deposited there to be transferred to one of their other types of presently existing accounts. The building society refuses to open this account simply because he is not resident within the UK; there are no other reasons. The citizen thinks that such restrictions are contrary to the principles of the free market within the EU. 7.20 German nationals ask the majority of questions concerning this issue.

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Chart 31: Bank Account by Nationality

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7.21 We note that the issue of ‘bank accounts’ goes hand in hand with the issue of ‘excessive fees for euro bank transfers’. As these types of questions are rather frequent, a corresponding subtopic could be added to the CSS database. A German national resident in the UK has tried several times to transfer Euros (less than 10.000) from her English to a German bank account. Last time she transferred money, charges for that transaction were doubled by the bank. At the same time she was requested to supply her IBAN and BIC numbers for the transaction. Even so it took 4 to 5 working days for money to arrive at the German bank account. On contrary, she had no problem to make a cross-border payment from Germany to Britain. It cost 0.50 GBP. The citizen does not think that such a situation is in line with EU law.

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8 Health and Financial Services 8.1 As explained in the Annex, we examined health services and financial services on the basis of key word search. We avoided the use of terms which are too general such as ‘account’, ‘social security’, ‘patient’, and also the use of professional titles (doctor, etc) because of the risk of double counting with regulated professions. The words used are listed in Table C below, which gives the number of cases with words which matched those in the search list.

Table C: Key Words Matched – Financial Services Key Words: Financial Services

Results

insurance company 507 match(es) bank account 467 match(es) credit 440 match(es) car insurance 194 match(es) insurance policy 138 match(es) financial services 114 match(es) bank transfer 67 match(es) vehicle insurance 67 match(es) compte bancaire 59 match(es) crédit 56 match(es) bank charges 47 match(es) assurance automobile 39 match(es) compte en banque 25 match(es) services financiers 17 match(es) frais bancaires 15 match(es) compagnie d’assurances 10 match(es) insurance premium 9 match(es) virement bancaire 9 match(es) police d’assurance 8 match(es) prime d’assurance 2 match(es) société d’assurances 2 match(es) Distinct matches6 495 matches 6 If different key words or one key word several times appear in the enquiry (in the fields of ‘enquiry’, ‘reply’, ‘translated enquiry’ or ‘translated reply’), eg ‘credit’ appears twice and ‘bank account’ three times, there is only one match counted for the key word ‘credit’ and one – for the ‘bank account’. The distinct matches on the other hand show the total of all matches, double counted enquiries excluded (these numbers are used in creating charts on financial and health services).

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Table D: Key Words Matched – Health Services Key Words: Health Services

Results

health care 835 match(es) Hospital 542 match(es) E111 482 match(es) healthcare 357 match(es) European Health Insurance Card 303 match(es) operation 255 match(es) operation 255 match(es) medical care 222 match(es) intervention 158 match(es) E112 124 match(es) Surgery 90 match(es) EHIC 75 match(es) carte européenne d’assurance maladie 67 match(es) dental care 53 match(es) clinic 46 match(es) hôpital 44 match(es) Chirurgie 30 match(es) clinique 28 match(es) hopital 23 match(es) soins dentaires 5 match(es) services médicaux 3 match(es) soins médicaux 3 match(es) non-hospital care 1 match(es) soins non ambulatoires 1 match(es) rembours 1 match(es) dentalcare 0 match(es) soins ambulatoire 0 match(es) Distinct matches 748 matches General observations 8.2 When included as if they were topics, health and financial services make an important share (7.7% and 5.1% respectively). However, it is not clear how far these two overlap with certain subtopics (e.g. health services and social security; financial services and opening a bank account).

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Chart 32: Topics Including Health and Financial Services

0,0%

0,1%

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6,4%

7,7%

8,7%

23,6%

36,6%

Data protection in the EU

Equal rights and opportunities for men and women in the EU

Other

Enforcing your rights in the single European market

Financial services

Studying, training and doing research in another country of the EU

Buying goods and services in the single european market

Health service

Travelling in another country of the EU

Living in another country of the EU

Working in another country of the EU

8.3 The majority of questions for both health and financial service come from British nationals. Among EU10, Polish and Slovak nationals make a relatively high proportion for financial services.

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Chart 33: Nationality of Enquirers Asking about Health and Financial Services

0,2%

0,4%

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1,3%

1,3%

1,3%

1,1%

0,9%

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4,7%

3,6%

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6,8%

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3,6%

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6,8%12,1%

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23,5%

LuxembourgerLatvianCypriot

EstonianSlovenian

CzechAustrianMalteseDanishFinnish

LithuanianIrish

HungarianBelgian

SwedishPortuguese

GreekSlovakian

SpanishItalianPolish

FrenchDutch

GermanBritish

Health services

Financial services

8.4 According to chart 34, in terms of total numbers, there is the same number of questions received (322) from women and men concerning health services. However, there are more questions received from women under the headings ‘homemaker, not seeking employment’ ‘student, trainee, researcher, etc’ and ‘unemployed, jobseeker’. For financial services men submitted almost twice as many enquiries as women and prevail in all categories except ‘homemaker, not seeking employment’. The ‘employed’ category contains the highest number of enquiries for both financial and health services, corresponding to the general trend.

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Chart 34: Economic Category and Gender – Financial and Health Services

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F M F M F M F M F M F M

Employed Homemaker, notseeking employment

Retired Self employed Student, trainee,Researcher, etc

Unemployed,Jobseeker

Financial Services

Health Services

Analysis of health and financial services 8.5 If looked at the share of nationals and non-nationals asking about health and financial services, it corresponds to the general EU average trend, where about 28% of enquiries are asked by own nationals.

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Chart 35: Financial and Health Services: Distinction between Nationals and Non-Nationals

From Nationals: 27.8%


From Non Nationals: 71.2%




Financial services

Health services

All Topics

8.6 Chart 36 shows an interesting ‘enlargement’ aspect, where questions related to Austria about ‘financial services’ are asked mostly by Slovakian and about ‘health services’ by Hungarian nationals. A similar pattern is also noticeable in relation to Ireland, where questions about ‘financial services’ are asked mostly by Lithuanian nationals7. 7 Caution is required here, as rather small numbers of enquiries are involved here: Ireland – 18 enquiries about ‘financial services’ and 27 – about ‘health services’; Austria: – 17 enquiries about ‘financial services’ and 13 – about ‘health services’.

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Chart 36: Financial and Health Services: Austria

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8.7 The key word search found a high number of enquiries related to the “European Health Insurance Card”, which might suggest a lack of awareness about the EHIC or/and the problems arising from the non-acceptance of the card in various parts of the EU. Example: A German national is working and is health-insured in Spain. During her stay in Germany, emergency medical treatment needed to be performed. The German hospital refused to recognise her European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) and admitted her as a private patient instead. The citizen would like to know, how she could ask her Spanish health insurance carrier for reimbursement and if it is obliged to reimburse.

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ANNEX Methodology I Four Methods 1 The report uses four methods to examine the CSS data:

- a powerful statistical research tool to interrogate the fields in the database - key word search for certain topics not included in the fields of the CSS database - selection of “illustrative” cases by experts - a google-style search tool.

Statistical Research Work 2 We have examined all the relevant fields on the CSS database (CSSDB) : Nationality Country of residence Country to which problem relates Gender Age Economic category Topic Subtopic Enlargement8 3 We have used a research tool which enables these fields to be examined on a three dimensional basis. The data were captured on several “cubes” which brought together statistics on three fields at the same time. The cubes were examined by means of a “pivot” technique which enabled a wide range of cross-tabulations (ie relating the fields to one another) to be studied. 4 The research tool was applied to the most obviously relevant data by covering eligible cases only (more than about 80% of all enquiries). In order to make the work manageable, we have focused on the most recent cases, ie those replied from 1 January 2006 to 1 November 2006, because: - the volume is substantial (6905 eligible replied enquiries, of which 6485 enquiries related to at least one EU country, 6194 of them being from EU citizens) - the results are up to date - the period covers the recent upsurge in demand for the CSS.

8 Enquirers provide the details for the first six fields (either directly on the CSS webform or by telephone to Europe Direct), while the last three fields are encoded by experts.

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5 In certain respects this report gives only a rough idea of the analytical power of this research tool. As it enables so many possible fields to be examined, we have confined the presentation in this report to some of the more easily obtained results. We would welcome the Commission’s view on the opportunities provided by this method of analysis, in particular to consider which areas (in the sense of combinations of fields) might be examined in greater depth in future reports. Key Word Search 6 We have included health services and financial services in this report as a forerunner of the in depth reports on these topics to be carried as part of the feedback programme. As these topics do not feature as selections on the CSS form, we created a set of key words in English and French for each of them (see Table C). We ran these key words on the CSSDB, looking both at the question and answer boxes and also at the translation boxes for those enquiries involving languages other than English or French. Illustrative Cases 7 An important aspect of the report is the inclusion of examples of “illustrative” cases to give some idea of the nature of typical enquiries which lie behind the bare statistics. Examples are therefore included in the text to give a picture of what it means to say, for example, that country X or nationality Y has a large share of certain types of cases (eg France and ‘social security’ , or Polish nationals and ‘right of access to employment’; or Germany and Spain and ‘enforcing your rights in the single European market’). 8 Each member of the team of legal experts was asked to send details of five illustrative cases from those handled recently (in the previous 3-4 months or so). Experts were invited to select cases on the basis of thinking over those cases where the problem is related to their country, and then concentrating on those nationalities (including the home country nationality) which tend to ask most questions; specific cases were then identified from those which involve the most usual topics. As a simple example, the statistics show that enquiries about Cyprus are often from UK nationals: so some of the illustrative cases for Cyprus involve the main topics of these types of cases. 9 It should be noted that the examples given are not intended to be cases which demonstrate a particular flaw in EU law or its application. On the contrary, they are a selection of cases which convey a sense of the typical run of enquiries. Google-Style Search 10 Some case examples were selected from lists via google-style search. The google-style tool enables downloading enquiries from the CSS database and saving them as ‘html’ files. Once saved locally, the tool functions like google-desktop or any other similar program searching for keywords inside the specified file.

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II Comment 11 We recognise that the CSSDB was constructed primarily as a tool to manage the day to day flow of enquiries and to provide replies by email. While it was not deliberately designed for the purpose of socio-economic or legal analysis, it contains a large volume of data which, compared to the data available from one-off research projects, has two unusual characteristics:

- it is in depth, as the full detail of each question and answer is recorded, together with simple details about the enquirer; and

- it is also up to date, enabling current trends to be assessed. Case management systems of this sort can reveal useful analytical results beyond their administrative function as long as their strengths and weaknesses are taken into account (in particular, the way in which the data is collected and stored). 12 A ‘small numbers’ issue arises where certain data cells are numerically small, as in the cases of several countries with a small population and for certain topics and subtopics which are not well represented in the data. In these cases less reliance can be placed on inferences made from the data. Wherever possible we alerted the reader to this point in the text. 13 Part of the research for this report involved close scrutiny of the data to ensure that the results obtained were reliable. These essential verification procedures took longer to be completed than expected, and lead us to make the following remarks about the data. 14 Topics: We note that experts have chosen the ‘other’ category as a topic in 122 out of the 6905 cases examined for the first 10 months of 2006, ie 1.7% of the total (see Chart 11). A preliminary check shows that cases encoded as ‘other’ concern, among things, issues such as family law, immovable property and bank transfer charges. 15 “Merged” Subtopics: We find that in some cases experts enter a topic but make no choice of subtopic, meaning that the range of available subtopics is insufficient or that they forgot to choose one. This absence of choice appears in the CSSDB as a proxy subtopic with the same title as the topic itself, for example where the topic ‘Living in another country of the European Union’ is chosen, the subtopic is also recorded as ‘Living in another country of the European Union’. We have treated this non-choice as equivalent to the ‘other’ category which is available in the subtopic list for each topic (except ‘Equal rights and opportunities for men and women in the European Union’ and ‘Data protection in the European Union’, which have no subtopics). As a result we have merged these cases under the heading ‘other’ so as make the analysis of subtopics easier. 16 “Grouped” Subtopics: Four subtopics appear under different topics, as follows:

- Right of residence (Studying, Working, Living) - Taxes (Working, Living) - National education systems (Studying, Working) - Overbooking of airline seats (Travelling, Buying).

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We have amalgamated the data for each of these subtopics so that the data appears as a single, grouped, figure. 17 Country related: We note that a high proportion of enquiries 27% involve citizens for whom the country to which the problem is related is their country of nationality (see Chart 6). While the result is interesting in its own right, we need to bear in mind that the enquiry form enables enquirers to select more than one country. It may be that certain enquirers select their own country because it is – or appears to be - partly involved (for example, in connection with social security, or taxes), even if it may not be the main country to which the problem relates.

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CHARTS AND TABLES Chart in Summary: Enquiries and Population – percentages Chart 1: Enquiries by Nationality Chart 2: Numbers of Enquiries per capita (EU Countries only) Chart 3: Nationality and Age Groups Chart 4: Economic Categories Recorded on the CSSDB Chart 5: Economic Categories by Age and Gender Chart 6: Enquiries about countries: Residence and Nationality at EU level Chart 7: Enquiries about Countries: Residence and Nationality – at Country Level Chart 8: Nationality of Enquirers Specifying Belgium Chart 9: Nationality of Enquirers Specifying Cyprus Chart 10: Nationality of Enquirers Specifying Czech Republic Chart 11: Topics Recorded on the CSSDB Chart 12: Topic ‘Working’ and Nationality Chart 13: Enforcement - Subtopics Chart 14: Enforcement - Subtopics by Country -% Chart 15: Enforcement - Subtopics – Numbers Chart 16: Enlargement in the Context of other Topics Chart 17: Subtopics Related to Enlargement Chart 18: Subtopics Recorded on the CSSDB Chart 19: The Main Subtopics by Nationality Chart 20: Right of Access to Employment by Nationality Chart 21: Four Subtopics by Country of Problem Chart 22: Four Main Subtopics: Focus on Belgium Chart 23: Social Security and Welfare Benefits by Nationality Chart 24: Social Security and Welfare Benefits by Country of Problem Chart 25: Social Security and Welfare Benefits: Ireland Chart 26: Social Security and Welfare Benefits: Lithuanians Chart 27: Motor Vehicle Subtopics by Country of Problem Chart 28: Motor Vehicle Subtopics by Nationality Chart 29: Motor Vehicle Subtopics: Enquiries from Britons Chart 30: Bank Account by Country of Problem Chart 31: Bank Account by Nationality Chart 32: Topics Including Health and Financial Services Chart 33: Nationality of Enquirers Asking about Health and Financial Services Chart 34: Economic Category and Gender – Financial and Health Services Chart 35: Financial and Health Services: Distinction between Nationals and Non-Nationals Chart 36: Financial and Health Services: Austria Table A: Population and Enquiries per capita Table B: Proportion of Cases with no Subtopic Table C: Key Words Matched – Financial Services Table D: Key Words Matched – Health services

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Documents

FEEDBACK REPORT What the Database Tells us · What the Database Tells us Prepared for the European Commission, Directorate General for the Internal Market and Financial Services by