Accession States, OVERVIEW: Today I’ll give you an overview on the ‘Accession States’ principle. In my next several blog posts and videos I’ll concentrate on each category of accessions states separately.
I would like to start by explaining the term ‘Accessions States’.
These are the EU countries that joined the European Union (EU) after 2004. When these countries joined the EU, the UK placed certain conditions on their rights to work in the UK.
There were three Accession state waves in the UK:
- The 1st one was created by what is known ‘EU8 countries’ in 2004.
- The 2nd one in 2007 by ‘EU2 countries’; and
- the last small 3rd wave was created by Croatia in 2013.
Apart from Croatia, the transitional periods for EU8 and EU2 countries ended in 2011 and 2013 accordingly. These
periods are of crucial importance when making your Permanent Residence application. This is because if you belong to one of the Accession States but have not followed the rules, which the UK placed at that time the Accession States joined the EU, that transitional period of time will not be included for the purpose of your PR application.
Let me give you an example:
Suppose, you are a national of Poland and came to the UK in April 2010 and started working in this country. However, you did not follow the rules and have not applied for a Worker Registration Scheme (WRC).
You were working in the UK for the next 5 years from April 2010 until June 2015 and then left the UK. You came back to the UK only in 2017.
If you were to apply for a WRC in April 2010, you would have acquired a right to apply for Permanent Residence in May 2015. This is because you would have a proof of the fact that you were living and working in the UK for at least 5 years: from April 2010 to May 2015. However, if you have not applied for a WRC, the UKVI will disregard 1 year (from April 2010 until 30 April 2011, when the transition period ended) for the PR application purposes. This is because without a WRC you would have spent only 4 years of lawful residence the UK from 1 June 2011 until June 2015. Therefore you will not qualify for your PR application. Your PR application period will start from 2017 when you re-entered the country.