Dear Antonio & Mario, dear
All,
Basically, you won't get problems to have unemployment
money back in Spain if you make sure that you'd be entitled to have it in your
host country, in this case UK.
In other words, do not simply assume
that your working contract pays for your unemployment. Check it out from the
very beginning, because it does not work in all countries as it does in
Spain.
Another point is that to get unemployment money back in Spain,
you will have to be back, work for a while, and then be jobless again. This
changed sometime around 2002 if I am not wrong.
As far as I know you should be eligible to get unemployment money in Spain
after your return, there should be some general European rules about that.
However, as Mario pointed out, the fine-print is important and you
should try to get exact information on that from the respective Spanish
authorities twice, (i) before you leave and (ii) before you return. It might be
important, e.g., that you register as unemployed for at least one or two days
before you leave for the UK, or within the UK before you return to Spain - or
your national rules might request just the opposite. Anyway, you should also
consider that rules might change during your two years in the UK (that's why I
recommended a double information retrieval above).
On the
other hand, you wrote "I do know that the two years I'll spend in
UK will be taken into account for my retirement in Spain"
This issue is far from clear as far as I know, so any tip from
you would be helpful out there.
I can only agree with Mario here. To my knowledge, the normal way would
currently still be that you receive pension separately for each country where
you have worked (and paid for it) if you have been there for more than one
year. In countires where you have worked (and paid) for less than one year you
would have to request a transfer of your pension entitlement to your home
country (or to that country where you have mainly worked?). On the other side,
there will probably be some more decades before your returement and these things
may change and (hopefully) become easier until
then.
Regards,
Cord
