EEA FP with a Twist...

This is for a friend, honest!

He: Greek, living in UK.

She: Russian, living in Russia.

He is 65+, retired, he's lived in UK for over 25 years, Greek passport long gone, living off UK pension.

She, just Russian really, they will marry in Russia in Sept 08.

I've kind of advised him to go EEA route cos it's loads cheaper, with him being on a pension, and the EEA tests seems to less focused on finances...

He's renewing his Greek passport, I think really he has nothing to lose, but do you you guys have any caveats? He's worried he's effectively been British for 25 years and the UK pension think might go against him.

I think he's qualified.

Para 5 of the EEA 2006 Regulations refers to a "Worker who has ceased economic activity", and defines this as a person who has reached the age at which he is entitled to a state pension, was working in the UK for at least a year before retiring, and has resided in the UK for at least 3 years before doing so.

It doesn't seem to disbar anybody from exercising their EEA treaty rights if they are also British, even if they have lived here all their life and their only claim to European nationality is by descent.

Mr Rusty wrote:It doesn't seem to disbar anybody from exercising their EEA treaty rights if they are also British

No. Unless they have been exercising a treaty right in another EEA state (Surinder Singh cases).

See the definition in the Regulations ("EEA national" means a national of an EEA State; "EEA State" means— (a) a member State, other than the United Kingdom;...).

Dual Brit-EEA nationals can use their EEA nationality to have applications considered under European Regulations rather than UK law, and have done so in very large numbers.

The Surinder Singh judgement was a different matter, relating to a British national who had been exercising her treaty rights in another European country, and was thus able to return to the UK and exercise them here to obtain residence for her non-EEA family

Indeed, I was misunderstanding your "also".

Wanderer wrote:This is for a friend, honest!

He: Greek, living in UK.

She: Russian, living in Russia.

He is 65+, retired, he's lived in UK for over 25 years, Greek passport long gone, living off UK pension.

She, just Russian really, they will marry in Russia in Sept 08.

I've kind of advised him to go EEA route cos it's loads cheaper, with him being on a pension, and the EEA tests seems to less focused on finances...

He's renewing his Greek passport, I think really he has nothing to lose, but do you you guys have any caveats? He's worried he's effectively been British for 25 years and the UK pension think might go against him.

Does he plan to become a British citizen?