EU court backs Britain on welfare rules

 BY ALASTAIR MACDONALD AND MICHELE SINNER

The British government won backing at the EU's top court on Tuesday in two cases that touch political nerves as Prime Minister David Cameron prepares for a referendum on whether to stay in the European Union.

A senior adviser recommended that the European Court of Justice (ECJ) dismiss a complaint against Britain brought by the EU executive, which accused London of discriminating against other citizens of the bloc in setting its residence rules for welfare.

And in a case not directly involving Britain, ECJ judges in Luxembourg upheld a French law that automatically deprived people convicted of serious offences of their right to vote. In a battle on a similar issue with the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights -- not an EU body -- Cameron's government has refused judicial demands to amend its legislation.

The welfare case is particularly significant because Cameron is demanding more freedom to curb UK benefits available to citizens of the other 27 EU member states in order to bring down the numbers migrating to Britain.

The issue forms a key part of a package of reforms Cameron is trying to negotiate from his EU partners before putting Britain's membership to a referendum by the end of 2017.

That vote, which opinion polls suggest will be tight, is a major topic of debate at Cameron's Conservative party conference this week.

The Court stresses its independence from politics, though EU officials say a number of recent decisions on benefits for migrants show a sensitivity to concerns in Britain and other EU states that have sapped popular support for the European Union.

The European Commission argues that the British process of checking whether claimants of child benefit and child tax credit are legally resident discriminates against foreign EU workers because British citizens are not checked in that way.

However, Pedro Cruz Villalon, one of the advocates-general whose opinions are generally later followed by the judges, said Britain was entitled to ensure that those claiming benefits met conditions set for taking up residence in other EU countries. And he said residence checks were made only in "doubtful cases".

"The UK welcomes this opinion, which supports our view that we are entitled to ensure only EU migrants who have a right to be in the UK can claim our benefits," the British government said in a statement, while noting it was not the final judgement.

MIGRATION DEBATE

Wealthier member states, including Germany, want to counter "benefit tourism" from poorer eastern states which joined since 2004. That has seen a number of court judgement which underline that free movement for EU citizens is principally restricted to those in work or seeking work, or their dependents.

Cameron, however, has drawn scepticism from EU officials and fellow government leaders by asking to be allowed to restrict social payments to workers from other EU states for up to four years after their arrival -- a move that many in Brussels say would breach EU laws banning discrimination against EU citizens.

In the other case, ECJ judges rejected a complaint by a Frenchman that his fundamental rights were breached when he was automatically stripped of the right to vote for the rest of his life on his 1988 conviction for a serious crime.

The case attracted little attention in France itself but was heralded by headlines in Britain warning of a pending reverse for Cameron in the middle of his party conference.

Struggling with challenges from the anti-EU UK Independence Party and a strong Eurosceptic wing in his own Conservatives, he has pledged to resist calls from the Strasbourg human rights court to amend legislation that bans prisoners from voting.

Cameron has said the thought of that makes him "physically sick" and the ECJ ruling in the French case is likely now to be used by British government lawyers in the human rights court./reuters