• At least 30,000 Britons on unemployment benefit in EU, Guardian research shows • Unemployed Britons in richer EU states outnumber claimants from those countries in UK • Helen Pidd searches for the only Briton in Poland claiming benefits

Unemployed Britons in Europe are drawing much more in benefits and allowances in the wealthier EU countries than their nationals are claiming in the UK, despite the British government’s arguments about migrants flocking in to the country to secure better welfare payments.

At least 30,000 British nationals are claiming unemployment benefit in countries around the EU, research by the Guardian has found, based on responses from 23 of the 27 other EU countries.

The research shows more than four times as many Britons obtain unemployment benefits in Germany as Germans do in the UK, while the number of jobless Britons receiving benefits in Ireland exceeds their Irish counterparts in the UK by a rate of five to one.

There are not only far more Britons drawing benefits in these countries than vice versa, but frequently the benefits elsewhere in Europe are much more generous than in the UK. A Briton in France receives more than three times as much as a jobless French person in the UK.

The research is being published after the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, visited London this month for talks with the prime minister, David Cameron, who is campaigning to “reform” EU freedom of movement as part of his attempt to rewrite the terms of Britain’s EU membership before putting the issue to a referendum in 2017, if he is still in power.

In Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Austria, France and Ireland the number of Britons banking unemployment cheques is almost three times as high as the nationals of those countries receiving parallel UK benefits – 23,011 Britons to 8,720 nationals of those nine countries in the UK.

The findings highlight a more nuanced and complex picture across Europe than the simplistic version painted by anti-immigration and anti-EU campaigners led by Ukip and elements in the Conservative party.

About 2.5% of Britons in other EU countries are claiming unemployment benefits – the same level as the roughly 65,000 EU nationals claiming jobseeker’s allowance in the UK.

Dr Roxana Barbulescu, researcher on international migration at the University of Sheffield, said the numbers claiming unemployment benefits were minuscule. “Thirty thousand people, or 2.5% of all British nationals, in other EU member states means that the overwhelming majority of Brits abroad as well as European citizens in Britain are not an undue burden for the countries in which they live.”

The data shows an east-west split in the pattern of Britons benefiting from often more generous unemployment payments, as well as a north-south divide.

The picture is quite different for the poorer east European countries which have joined the EU over the past decade, with hardly any Britons drawing unemployment benefits in those countries.

In search of the only Briton in Poland claiming benefits Read more

The figures for nationals of those 10 east European countries drawing jobseeker’s allowance in the UK remain modest, despite the periodical outcries about “benefits tourism”. There are only about 1,000 Romanians and 500 Bulgarians, for example, drawing jobseeker’s allowance in Britain, according to the Department for Work and Pensions. Of the almost 30,000 Britons on unemployment benefits in other EU countries, only 62 are in the 10 countries that have joined since 2004.

The pattern of Britons being treated generously in Scandinavia and northern Europe goes into reverse around the poorer south, with Italians, Spanish and Portuguese out of work in the UK outnumbering the unemployed Britons in those countries by 13,580 to 5,670.

But, with the number of Britons in Spain three times that of Spaniards in Britain, and given the demographic differences between these two groups of migrants, the pressure on Spain’s finances is most likely to be on its health service.

The data appears to belie British complaints amplified in the PM’s speech on immigration in November in which he demanded curbs on freedom of movement in the EU and new measures discriminating between natives and EU citizens in low-paid work, adding that the UK was getting a raw deal from the EU system of citizenship rights and reciprocal social security arrangements.

Jean-Claude Juncker, the European commission president, told the Guardian in December that Cameron could tinker with British law on social security and migrant rights, but that enshrining discrimination in EU law was a no-go area.

British officials concede that the government may have run up against the limits of what it can accomplish with domestic legislation and would need changes at EU level.

Merkel, the most powerful politician in the EU, has made plain to Cameron what senior diplomats in Brussels describe as her “red lines” – the untouchability of freedom of movement.

“It’s going to be a very, very hard act [for Cameron] to pull off,” said a diplomat. “The Germans have set their red lines. Others are saying: ‘We’re not changing things just to suit [Britain].’”

Mediation of the British issue will fall to Donald Tusk, who chairs EU summits. The former Polish prime minister will be less than keen to agree concessions affecting the many Poles in Britain – at 15,000, the biggest single EU nationality drawing UK jobseeker’s allowance, against just two Britons recorded as receiving Polish unemployment benefit. The task will get harder in 2015 if, as many predict, Jarosław Kaczyński – a chippy, bristling rightwing nationalist – becomes Poland’s prime minister.

Commenting on the Guardian findings, the EU commissioner for justice, consumers and gender equality, Vĕra Jourová, said: “Free movement of our citizens is essential to the European Union. It is a fundamental right and an asset to our union. Free movement of people – to work, live and travel in other EU countries – is at the core of having a strong single market and it benefits our economy and society. Abuse weakens free movement. Therefore, member states need to tackle abuse decisively where it happens and EU rules provide the tools to do this.”

The data on those receiving unemployment benefit across the EU is just one small snapshot of the immigration and free movement issue. The different countries’ welfare systems vary hugely, complicating efforts at comparison. The payouts offer an approximate equivalent enabling rough comparisons.

According to government figures, there are 2.7 million EU nationals in Britain and 1.3 million UK citizens living elsewhere in the EU.

Tied up in German red tape

Peter Chivers is one of the thousands of Britons who have claimed unemployment benefit in Germany, where he received a higher level of support than he would have got in the UK.

I found it a very demeaning experience, but then that may have been the point Peter Chivers, from Bradford

The 41-year-old, from Bradford, received €450 a month (£350) plus additional housing benefit, which worked out to at least £60 more than the sum he would have been eligible for in the UK.

Some 6,022 Britons are currently claiming unemployment benefit in Germany, compared with 1,470 German nationals doing the same in the UK.

Like many of these British nationals, Chivers had moved to Berlin – a popular destination partly because of its exciting cultural scene – and found the local job market difficult to access. He also found it challenging to sign on for German unemployment benefit.

Chivers, who speaks fluent German and has a language degree, said: “At the jobcentre, they said to me: ‘You must have learned a trade?’ I told them that an apprenticeship wasn’t crucial to start a job in the UK – you could get a job just with a degree. But they struggled with that concept,” he said.

When Chivers asked if it could assist with job training, the jobcentre refused. “To be honest, I found the authorities incredibly obstructive … They put every obstacle in my way that they could.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest David Cameron and Angela Merkel. Germany supports Britain’s call for a crackdown on ‘benefits tourism’, but says changes to the principle of free movement of people in the EU are non-negotiable. Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

Since then, he has managed to find a job and no longer needs to battle with the system. If he were forced to go through the application process again, he said, he would seriously consider moving back to Britain instead.

His experience with benefit claims stood in stark contrast to that in Britain: “When I had to apply for benefit in the UK, I just turned up at the benefit office and had to fill out one form. Later, someone came around to check whether I really lived at my address. That was it.

“In Germany, I needed to certify everything from what kind of car I drove down to how I heated my flat. At times it felt like I was doing paperwork for paperwork’s sake. I found it a very demeaning experience, but then that may have been the point.”

British nationals in Germany without a job usually draw one of either two types of benefits: unemployment insurance, which is contributory, ie relative to their employment history and previous income, or the non-contributory unemployment assistance payment, which after reforms in the early noughties is usually referred to as Hartz IV.

To qualify for the first category, you need to have held down a job for at least 12 months in the two years before the claim, thus having paid into the employment insurance scheme. In return, you get paid around 60% of your previous income, or higher if you have children, to help you while looking for your next job.

Depending on the age of claimants and how long they were in full employment, benefits can be paid for up to two years. If they are still out of work afterwards, they have to switch to the means-tested unemployment assistance benefit, which is considerably lower. Single people currently get €391 a month and a further subsidy of between €229 and €296 for every child, depending on their age. To receive the payments, one has to agree to a contract, which obliges those on benefit to accept certain jobs offered to them.

Philip Oltermann in Berlin

Claiming in Spain during austerity

In Spain, where the UK government estimates that as many as 800,000 Britons live for at last part of the year, dozens of online forums offer expats advice and tips on how to access Spanish social services.

I felt as though I were robbing a crumbling government of money that could’ve been earned by working in a summer camp Josh Taylor, from Stockport

When he had a three-month break between his contracts for teaching English as a foreign language in June 2011, it was a friend who suggested to Josh Taylor that he should claim unemployment benefit. “I had never actually considered it. In the UK, it’s barely worth it,” said Taylor, originally from Stockport and now living in Granada. With teaching academies closed for the summer and little other work available, he felt he only had two options: stay in Spain and claim unemployment benefit until his next contract began or go home and work.

He wrestled with whether or not to claim the money. “I have the right to claim, I work, I pay my taxes, I contribute.” He chronicled the debate on his blog: “In one respect I did feel as though I were robbing a crumbling government of money that could’ve been otherwise earned by working in another, god-awful summer camp, but frankly the thought of a summer filled with free time was too tempting.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Josh Taylor at the Alhambra in Spain. Photograph: Josh Taylor

“Why, after all, would I want to slave away after hundreds of unruly, silver-spoon-fed teenagers for six weeks when there was this alternative? And I was entitled to it, wasn’t I?”

The benefit worked out to about 60-70% of what he had been earning as a teacher, netting him around €700 a month in benefits. “It’s a fairly generous benefit system and very helpful,” he said.

Faced with the same stretch of downtime in 2012, he claimed unemployment benefit for a second time. But in the following years, he decided he was better off going home and working during the summer break. “Although it was essentially money for nothing, I didn’t have enough to enjoy myself and I got rather bored,” he said.

The demographics of British expats in Spain suggest that, as a group, they are more likely to make use of the country’s healthcare system than stand in unemployment queues. Between 2000 and 2010, the number of British residents over the age of 60 in the country increased 400%. Spanish authorities estimate that as many as half of British expats in Spain are over the age of 50.

In 2008 and 2009, Helena Legido-Quigley, a lecturer at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, interviewed British pensioners about their experiences in the Spanish healthcare system. She was surprised to hear how positive their experiences had been. “They reported that they had very good experiences and it was mainly to do with the fact that healthcare professionals were making great efforts to communicate with them and provide them with relevant services,” she said.

The pensioners she spoke to praised the access to specialists, quality of machinery and infrastructure in Spain’s public health care system.

The cost Spain bears to provide this care is difficult to ascertain, she said. While the UK transfers a monthly sum to compensate for every UK pensioner legally residing in Spain, this only applies to those who have registered with local authorities. Whether it is due to ignorance, taxation concerns or a desire to keep ties with Britain, many expats do not register, she said, causing the number of Britons in Spain to be grossly underestimated.

Ashifa Kassam in Madrid

How the Danes do it … voluntarily

When Ken Rushe moved to Copenhagen in 2004 to take up a teaching job at an international school, he immediately joined the union and a Danish unemployment insurance fund. Since then he has encouraged his colleagues – from Britain and abroad – to do the same.

I think it’s a fair system, it’s well-organised and it’s a system that most Danes believe in Ken Rushe, from London

Denmark is renowned for having one of the most generous welfare systems in Europe, but unemployment insurance is voluntary. In order to be eligible for benefits you need to sign up with an unemployment insurance fund – known as A-kasse – for which you pay a monthly fee of about £50.

“Expats who come here appreciate it as a good system to pay into,” said Rushe, who was born in Galway, Ireland, and lived in London for 18 years before moving to Denmark. He has been working full-time since he arrived but happily contributes the insurance fund fee. “I think it’s a fair system, it’s well-organised and it’s a system that most Danes believe in.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest People bike to work in Copenhagen, Denmark. Photograph: Slim Allagui/AFP/Getty Images

People insured with an A-kasse can receive up to 90% of their previous income, with a maximum rate of 4,135 Danish kroner per week (£435) before tax in 2015. Benefits are paid for up to two years; until 2010 they were paid for up to four years.

To qualify for unemployment benefit, you need to have been a member of an insurance fund for at least one year and have worked a minimum of 52 weeks within the previous three years. However, employment and insurance periods earned in other EU countries can be included.

The question of EU migration and social benefit has been a hotly contested issue in Denmark, with the government campaigning to keep an additional rule that prevents immigrants from claiming unemployment benefit as soon as they arrive. Migrant workers must have worked in Denmark for at least 296 hours within three months if they want to be insured full-time.

A similar requirement for migrant workers in Finland has come under fire from the European commission, and the Danish prime minister, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, has supported the Finns in a bid to keep the countries’ special rules. “It’s obvious that EU citizens should use the freedom of movement to travel where they can find work,” Thorning-Schmidt said last year. “They shouldn’t use it to travel where they can receive the best welfare benefit.”

Lars Eriksen in Copenhagen