Did you know that Eastern European nationals can count residency in the UK for the time before their countries joined the EU?
This post would be of interest to Romanian, Polish and other A8 and EU2 nationals, considering an application for permanent residency in the UK (or for British Citizenship if they are applying straight for Citizenship without applying for permanent residency first, which is allowed for the EEA nationals). In the past, when assessing eligibility for permanent residence under the European Regulations, we could only count the time spent in the UK under the Regulations before a country in question joined the EU. For example, Romania joined on 1 January 2007, so we would only count from then. Some migrants did reside in the UK before that but on the visas under the Immigration Rules, such as a Work Permit or the old Highly Skilled (HSMP) visa or a student visa. The point is that residence under the EEA Regulations derives from the European law while residence under the UK Immigration Rules derives from the UK law. Normally, we can’t combine them! We could not use such a combination