CHRISTMAS songs burble from the radio, but even in winter the British regulars of Rabbies pub are taking their beers outside on the terrace—one of the benefits of retiring to Lloret de Mar, a seaside resort in north-east Spain. Good medical care is another, which is just as well: ailments dominate their conversation. “You not drinking today?” Daz, a former joiner from Glasgow, asks his neighbour. “Doctor’s orders,” she replies, nursing a mug of hot chocolate: “Nae drinking, nae smoking. But I’ll be back with a vengeance!”

Back home in Britain, Westminster politicians, echoing tabloid newspaper grumbles, claim the EU’s regime of health-care rights across borders is too generous. They are referring, however, not to the sort of sun-seeking pensioner found in Rabbies, but to those migrants who move to Britain from the union’s poorer, eastern and southern member states. David Cameron is planning to unveil tough new measures to curb their access to the British welfare state. But as the scene at Rabbies suggests, Britons benefit from equivalent access in other EU countries. Roughly as many are thought to live in them (slightly under 2m) as do EU nationals in Britain (slightly over 2m). Restricting pan-EU rights to health care will affect elderly Brits living in Spain more than young Poles in Britain.

According to a recent study by researchers at University College London, the average recent migrant to Britain from within the EU is in his twenties and costs the National Health Service (NHS) less than the average native. No figures exist comparing their demands on the British welfare state with those of Britons on the Spanish system. But such Brits are generally older and less healthy. More than half are over 50, estimates the country’s statistics authority.

A 2008 study found that British residents on the Costa Blanca, south of Lloret, smoked and drank more than their compatriots in Britain (consumption typically rose when they emigrated) and had higher hospitalisation rates than their Spanish neighbours. Drinking among older expats was also cited last year when authorities in Benidorm, a resort town, started issuing registration numbers for mobility scooters in response to a spate of speeding offences and accidents.

Britons in Lloret are full of praise for Spain’s health system. “Just two beds to a room,” marvels Frank. “You wouldn’t get that on the NHS.” Another points out that medicine is cheaper. It is a universal, state-funded model (similar to the NHS) and anyone receiving a British state pension or paying taxes in Spain can access treatment. British immigrants rarely struggle with the paperwork, says a registrar at the hospital serving Lloret, which even employs its own interpreter.

Like their counterparts in Westminster, continental politicians grumble about the burden on the public purse. In 2012 Spain’s then health minister, Ana Mato, announced a crackdown on foreigners who had paid no tax but used the health service—at a cost of almost €1 billion ($1.25 billion) to the Spanish state. Another senior member of the governing party accused the British Foreign Office of publicising the availability of treatments not offered by the NHS on Spain’s health service. France, too, has tried to limit some British expats’ access to its heavily subsidised health insurance system, though Britons of retirement age or over can still use it.

Perhaps, then, Mr Cameron can forge a coalition of EU governments willing to reform migrants’ rights across the union. But he may want to tread carefully. His Conservative Party has pledged to give all British expats the right to participate in general elections; Tory strategists are confident that, in the long run, this could benefit their party at the polls. His successors may come to rue the day he jeopardised the emigrants’ beloved Spanish health care.