: Mon Feb 23, 2009 4:38 pm
tb wrote:
Nope. Once he has a valid work visa for one EU member country, he is entitled to enter any other EU country in carrying out his work. (edit: not to self – read thread)
The Kolpak ruling disagrees ...
Beg to differ. Kolpak was a national of a country which has an Association Agreement with the EU in possession of a valid UK work permit, and was therefore to be treated
for the purposes of employment as if he was a citizen of an EU country.
As the concept of "work permits" no longer exists, the issue is one of a visa being granted, or not.
Your interpretation, if I read it right, is that being granted a visa to enter one EU state is the same as being granted a visa to enter them all. It's not. If once in he was discriminated against within an employment context then Kolpak would kick in. However the point is whether he is allowed in in the first place. Otherwise we could just pick the EU country with the slackest visa laws, get applicants like Bird to apply for a visa to there, and hey, Bingo!
It will be interesting indeed how they deal with this. Logically, he's a person who has been refused admission despite having jumped through the relevant employment hoops successfully, and the refusal appears to be on "undesirability" grounds. I do not for one minute believe that any decision by France to allow him into their country would in any way be binding on the UK, and indeed it seems completely illogical, unless we've surrendered our border controls to France generally, and not just at Sangatte.
