Dear Mr.McConn,

I was pleased to receive your reply today, but feel I should make some relevant observations.

If I may first draw your closer attention to the IKA v. Ioannidis case and I have the judgement before me. When reaching their decision, the ECJ. judgement did not refer to 'necessary health care' when being asked to ratify the Judicial Review of a Greek Court. They were asked to rule upon the meaning of Article 31 of E.U. Directive 1408/71.
This is what the Court agreed 'inter alia'.

"Article 31 was not reserved to situations where the illness which necessitated the treatment in question required immediate treatment or manifested itself suddenly during the stay and was not subject to prior authorisation." The use of the word necessary by you, now becomes somewhat vague, if not erroneous.

However, you do now acknowledge that certain classes of citizens, including State pensioners, have a right to a higher level of health care during a temporary stay in another Member State. This is the first time this has come to U.K. citizens from any U.K. governmental agency!

You state that by virtue of Regulation 631/2004 the distinction to recognise the format E111, or E111+  no longer remains. If you care to send me the Official Journal number and page number, I will be able to readily access it, since it is rarely possible, through identification of the Directive number alone, as these come to us like confetti at a wedding.

If the need for the inclusion of this EHIC identification to entitlement has been dispensed with, then I have clearly identified a need for its return, since one cannot determine ones entitlement of the higher level of care, by age alone. How does a minor travelling alone identify himself/herself as a family member dependant of a State pensioner? How does, for example a man age 59 years identify himself as a family dependant of his spouse, who is say is, a State pensioner in her own right at age 60? However, this is not within mine or your competence to deal with and I have placed the matter back before the relevant Commission. I believe I have already forwarded you our letter to them in this matter, but it can be viewed on our website - British Expats Association (Spain). You do not require the url as entering this in any major search engines will easily find us.

You refer to the matter, where as of the 1st June 2004 it was agreed that all EHIC holders became entitled to the higher level of benefits. Somebody seems to have forgotten to tell European citizens about this. However, since the matter has not been formerly dealt with, this cannot, as yet, be European Law. Indeed I have a letter from one of our U.K.State pensioners before me, dated 19 December 2005, from the DWP. wherein  it is stated, "Should you visit the U.K. on holiday you should obtain a European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) from the Spanish authorities so that you can receive urgent/necessary treatment if required whilst in the UK."? This is a wholly inaccurate statement.

Mr.Cornelissen, Head of Unit for the Commission of Employment and Social Affairs has also advised me they are considering removing Disability Living Allowance from Schedule 2 of E.U.1408/71(i.e. the E.U. ‘dustbin’). This too is just a consideration. It is not E.U. Law and most certainly the U.K. government do not allow the export of this allowance to those in receipt, after its 'cut-off’ date of June 1992. So therefore, at this time, we must not talk about
what may or may not be for the future.

We were already aware that the E.U.Community were considering a move towards one level of treatment for all European citizens, at the point of delivery in all Member States. This too has not yet reached fruition. Therefore we cannot speculate, but must rely upon existing E.U. legislation.

Mr.McConn, meanwhile we must stick to the law and leave 'Alice in Wonderland' behind us until the law is properly enacted.

In your e-mail to me Mr.McConn you refer to the Germany incident, as more likely to be a failure of Communication. How does this statement line up with your statement and the letter from our own Government's Department, the DWP? There appears to be a very big failure of communication in the U.K.!!

It was refreshing to have you acknowledge the inaccuracies in the Inland Revenue's leaflet NI 38 and your intention to amend. You will also find more references in other U.K. Agency leaflets, that similarly require emendation.

Perhaps you could also advise our Foreign an Commonwealth Office, since their website is inaccurate also. I have advised them, but they choose to ignore us, although they had to accept and rectified 2 previous separate inaccuracies we identified. They will also have to do so in this matter.

Mr.McConn may I say how refreshing it was to have received your reply, where you have looked more closely at these matters I have raised.

I await to hear from you with regard to the 'Official Journal' identification number.

Yours sincerely,

David R.Burrage

Co-founder of the British Expats Association (Spain).