[gambiting]

>>That wouldn't mean EU citizens would be here illegally either.

I have exactly ZERO trust that this is the interpretation that the government will take.

When I first tried applying for the permanent residence card, I was told that according to the home office

1) As an EU citizen you need to be exercising your "EU free movement rights" to be in the UK legally

2) If you are a student without private health insurance, you are not exercising your "EU free movement rights"

3) I spoke with multiple Home Office agents, some saying that it means that a student without private health insurance is here illegaly, others saying that no, an EU student without private health insurance is here legally, they are "just not exercising their EU free movement rights". No, they weren't able to explain what exactly they mean by that or which legislation says so.

This strikes me as the exact same situation. No, you don't have the right to be here, but at the same time, you do, but no, we can't point you to any law that would say so.

[makomk]

That's a huge long-running mess. The EU rules on free movement are written around the assumption that health care is insurance-based, and contain a rule stating that people must either be employed or have "comprehensive sickness insurance" in order to exercise that right for more then three months. This clashes badly with the UK's unique setup of healthcare for all that's free at the point of use. Other EU countries with "universal healthcare" are set up as state-run insurance schemes where you must either be employed or claiming one of a specific set of benefits to have healthcare, and this works fine with the EU rules - they can just charge an insurance fee to students from other EU states. Non-EU nationals residing in the UK pay a similar surcharge to fund their use of the NHS, but EU nationals can't be charged that because it technically isn't insurance. The European Commission's interpretation of the rules is that the NHS counts as comprehensive sickness insurance and every EU national who moves here should be able to get free healthcare forever even if they don't pay a penny; this would be fine if it wasn't for the fact that we're basically the only EU state that has to do this!

The right to permanent residence after five years is then restricted to "Union citizens and their family members who have resided in the host Member State in compliance with the conditions laid down in this Directive during a continuous period of five years". So it depends heavily on how those conditions are interpreted.

[gpderetta]

It is not unique. Italy (another large EU founding state) has pretty much exactly the same setup as UK.

edit: the Italian SSN (Servizio Sanitario Nazionale) was basically modeled on the NHS.

[mytailorisrich]

It is perfectly legal to enter the country and reside here as student.

But if you do not have health insurance this does not count towards gaining permanent residence (and thus citizenship thereafter).

If you need legal advice you should talk to a solicitor specialised in immigration law, not to a random person in a call centre.

[gambiting]

I did actually, and the immigration lawyer I spoke to said that the home office is wrong about this, because the EU doesn't specify any such requirement - just that if you lived in a member country for 5 years you automatically get the right to permanent residence there. That's it. There are no further conditions attached. So UK breaks this law by requiring anything extra, but her advice was that yes, it is entirely possible to take the Home Office to court over this and win, it's just going to take a lot of time and money(and I had neither).

And besides, it's just not some random people in the call centre - Home Office's own website said that you only reside in the UK legally if you are exercising your free movement rights - I mean, that clearly reads to me as "if you don't, you are here illegally". It can't work both ways.

[mytailorisrich]

> just that if you lived in a member country for 5 years you automatically get the right to permanent residence there

No, you need to meet additional criteria. This is explicit in EU law [1] (and very well covered online), so I'm puzzled as to the advice you received.

Since you were looking for a legal references regarding students, note that [1] is also explicit that students should have "comprehensive sickness insurance cover" (the dispute here is whether access to NHS qualifies. UK government argues that it does not).

[1] Article 7 of https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A...