By Manuel Escuder, a member of one of the SY2E – Remain in the EU groups

Here is another example of what the EU can do for individuals.

Before retiring, I worked for an international company with operations throughout the world. I worked mainly in the UK, but also had a few years working in other European countries. In each of these countries, I paid my National Insurance contributions which would count towards my state pension.

However, in some of these countries, there is a minimum number of years of contributions to qualify for a state pension, so there is a risk that someone who works in several different countries, contributing NI may end up with no pension at all.

The EU pensions agreements however allows the TOTAL number of years across all EU countries to be used and each country to count for the minimum and then to pro-rata the pension payable from that country according to the years worked there.