Too many laws?
07-05-2008

The freedom of mobility gives us a lot of opportunities to travel to other Western countries and/or other countries within the European Union. The EU-law (cf. Regulation (EEC) No 1408/71) secures that we also are entitled to the grating of healthcare, which the citizens of the country in question also are entitled to or else will this law secure that we all can be fully insured through our attachment to for instance Denmark. Thus a win-win situation no matter where we choose to work within this large community that Europe is.  

But there is still a small but to all this, which is also stated in the law. It is solely through labour that we can acquire the right ‘European identity’, including the rights of healthcare.

The rules apply for the smart citizen, who is able to sell of his work. A person who takes up residence without a job can only claim few (healthcare) rights. This might not be such a weird thing: Denmark cannot finance for instance all poor citizen within the European Union who flock to Denmark in search of happiness!

It is however interesting, how the European Union has thought of solving challenges of this type. Has the European Union thought of how to go about it, when poor citizens within the European Union also begin to move across borders without jobs? The answer is no, the European union has not. Have the member states? Apparently not – maybe with the exception of Spain, which provides the same healthcare rights to everyone staying in the county as the country’s own citizens.

The foreign homeless are out there. They live in the streets and some of them also bring their children. Who is helping them when their dreams burst, and they end up under down-at-heal circumstances and cannot take care of themselves? We do, in projekt UDENFOR, amongst others, but it would be off beam to address us as an overall contribution within this matter. We do not have the EU-regulation, the Danish legislation or the Danish solidarity on our side.

Our trainee social education worker Mads is right now trying to find a job for a foreign homeless man from another EU-country, who really wants a job. This is a man who does not have a resident permit and who has been commuting between Denmark and his country of origin as a homeless in almost 7 years. We have finally found a job, which is right for him, and since there in this case at the same time is an employer who is very positive about hiring him, we all thought, “This is going to be just fine. Yes, it is going to happen now! Finally, a happy ending”. 

But the reality turned out to bed quite different.    

It does however seem that the happy ending was far ahead. It is important to the employer that this man does not have a criminal record, which is a common requirement in Denmark. Mads gets in contact with the police, tells the story, as it is that we are dealing with a man, who is homeless and who does not have a resident permit, and asks the police – if they of course have not seen this man before – if they can issue a document which states that he has never collided with the Danish police before? The answer was no. The police cannot issue this without a social security number.

Mads continues his mission and contacts Citizen Services where he once more tells the story, and if it is possible to get a social security number for the homeless man. But the answer from Citizen Services was just as clear as the answer from the police. No, he cannot. To receive a social security number, one must have a resident permit and to get a resident permit one must have a job.

Mads then returns to our office and fills the rest of us in on this case. I contact the Ministry of Health and Prevention and ask a principal if it can be right that this have to be so difficult, and if there are other thing that we need to do in this case. The employee is very familiar with these rules regarding the freedom of mobility of labour and he too has trouble understanding that it has to be so difficult. At the end of our conversation, the employee suggests that we get in contact with the Ministry of Justice concerning the terms of issuing criminal records. After this is it possible to return to the employer and clarify whether it has to be a Danish criminal record or… The employee then stops and says “I do not even think that the authorities in that specific country know what a criminal record is!” 

This certainly does not make the case any easier for the homeless man or for us in projekt UDENFOR. Mads listened in on the conversation and when I had hung up, he said right away “You need to have a social security number in order to get a criminal record.” In other words, there is no need to call up the Ministry of Justice. Then what? Do we call up the Embassy of that particular country here in Denmark and ask if they do in fact have criminal records, and if it is possible to issue one in the homeless man’s name or write for one from that particular country?

Or is it better to try and convince the employer to circumvent the procedures and talk him into issuing a temporary contract for one month’s work, so the homeless man can receive a social security number, then a Danish criminal record, then a new contract and then a resident permit? Can this be done at all? We do not know, but will continue our quest.

When it comes to this foreign homeless man, we really thought that it would go through smoothly, go through easy. But we have to think again. We are all being thrown backwards and forwards in a world with too many laws, so I guess that it is needless to say that the homeless are too. The free movement of labour is not so free after all and not for all the citizens of the European Union.        

Serap Erkan