Foreign Perspectives

Although the peak holiday season is almost upon us I’m sure that the majority of people have done little at this point other than booking the holiday itself.

Whilst you can obviously leave many things to the last minute that can cost you dear. Just consider what seems on first thought to be a simple matter of parking the car. Last time I tried that in our local airport the price ranged from £2.50 a day with no additional charges through to £10 a day with charges for the airport shuttle.

That was at a small local airport and it’s a lot more complex when you’re looking for gatwick parking as the people over at Essential Travel reveal on their website. I knew that Gatwick was quite a large airport facility but I’d never have dreamt of it having as many as 17 car parks and, of course, they all come with different rates and offers. Even stingy ole me wouldn’t dream of pricing around that many car parks so it’s just as well that their site does that hard work for you as there’s quite a bit of money to be saved if you get the right car parking for your holiday.

Popularity: unranked [?]

No, not as an asylum seeker!

We’re following European Directive 2004/38/EC which is the directive which gives European citizens and their family members and dependants the right move to any other European country. In general terms to take advantage of this directive you need to be moving your family from one country to another. For example, if you are only British and are living in the UK then you can’t use this directive to get any residence rights for a non-European wife. However, in the special case of those who count as “people of Northern Ireland” it’s possible for a British citizen to exercise these rights by requiring the UK authorities to consider them to be Irish (see the British-Irish agreement).

Who counts as a “family member or dependant”? Basically it’s:

• the European citizen plus their spouse (or registered partner or partner in a durable [2 years or more] relationship) and
• the direct descendants of either one up to 21 (or older if they are dependant on the parent) and
• the dependant direct relatives in the ascending line of either (ie parents, grandparents, etc.) and
• any other dependant relatives or members of the household of the European citizen.

Which essentially translates as anyone who lives in the house of the European citizen in the country from which they are moving, regardless of their nationality (which paraphrases Articles 2 & 3 of the directive).Most people think they must have a visa to move to another country but if you are one of the people covered by the above paragraph then in fact you don’t courtesy of Article 5, paragraph 4 which lets you prove “by other means” that you are covered by this directive. For example, in our own case Wendy has an expired European Residence Permit in her passport thus proving that the directive applies to her so she doesn’t need a visa and neither does she need to go down the “Non-European citizen” queues at immigration control even though she’s Australian.

Now you might think that you’re sure to need a residence permit but even that’s not the case because  Article 25, paragraph 1 also has the option to “prove by other means” entitlement to the rights granted under this directive and specifically forbids possession of a residence permit to be used as a precondition for the exercise of any rights or completion of any administrative formality. Which means that, in practice, you never need to have the residence permit.

But, what rights does this directive actually give? Well, in practical terms it translates as giving anyone covered by the directive almost all the rights that a national of the country would have with limitations only in areas such as national security (eg you probably couldn’t work as a diplomat) and voting (although the European citizen can vote in local and European elections). Thus the authorities are required to treat Wendy as though she were British and had always been British.

That’s the theory, but how does it work out in practice. Well, Wendy doesn’t get any UK stamps in her passport these days and avoids the massive queues at some airports which simplifies our lives no end as we can all go through the “EU Citizen” immigration queues. She already has her National Insurance number from when we were here before but temporary ones are allocated once you start work in the UK if you don’t have one already. One current complication remains in connection with the doctor (and I suspect the dentist) which is that although the doctor’s office don’t have any problem in treating her, the Central Services Agency (CSA) are still asking for copies of her visa and residence permit which, of course, we can’t provide as we have neither and we just found out this morning that because of that they’ve told the doctor to take her off his list. That’s not really a big problem as worst case scenario from the doctor’s office end is that we fill in a temporary resident form every time we go to the doctor. It does have a potentially major upside in that as the CSA are breaking the law we could get quite a sizeable compensation payment…

So, overall, an easy, legal and free way to live & work in the UK.

Popularity: 4% [?]

For me there can only be one place to go and that’s the wide open plains of the American wild west. Yup, the big country.

Motorhomes aren’t things to confine to towns and cities but rather to use on the wide open road and few places get more wide open than the likes of Arizona and Texas. OK, it’s a bit of a struggle for the big beasts to get up some of the hills around the canyons but it’s the modern day covered wagon and the old timers had a bit of a struggle up the very same mountain ranges.

Monument valley is, of course, John Wayne country. That’s the backdrop that you’ll see in countless westerns and even today you can park your rig in one of the remaining indian emcampments. It’s miles from anywhere too so you get to see the stars in the night sky just as the old-time pioneers did.

Move a little further south and you can even tie your “hoss” up right in the centre of Tombstone just a little ways down from the OK Corral. Next morning you can even stroll down the very same wooden sideway that Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday and the Clancys did because that section of Tombstone has been preserved just the way it was in those days.

So where would YOU take your RV?

Popularity: 3% [?]