Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Pensioners across Europe ----



Pensioners across Europe  -  Latest February 2013

A.   
 Our good friends in Cyprus -  The Cyprus Expat  Online Journal have sent me the news that the European Commission is taking the Netherlands to the European Court of Justice on the matter of discrimination against their Pensioners who choose to move abroad.
In the case of a Dutch pensioner who might in their working life have lived in Maastritch (That famous city, the home of ‘European unity’!) they only have to move house within a hour or so of walking distance East or West to live in Germany or Belgium.  If they did so then under Dutch Law they could loose a certain Old Age Benefit ( a bit like the Winter Fuel Payment!).  Of course many retired Dutch choose to live in France – for the same reasons as ourselves – MORE SPACE – Holland is full.
The Dutch Government are treating their pensioners in the same manner as the British Government treats the British Pensioner Abroad – with disdain. 
Oddly and interestingly the Dutch Government does allow their expatriate Citizens to vote.
You can read all about it on the Cyprus site here. 

B.   
The French expatriates in London are learning about our condition of life here in France and a journalist has interviewed me.  It is written in French and published in the ‘petit journal’ online paper.  There is said to be about 400,000 French people in S.E England.  There are c. 56,900 British Pensioners in France and probably about 250,00 British people altogether.  [These statistics are hard to verify - the number of pensioners is correct]

View the French-London article here.
 A French discussion on the Political Representation of  the British