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Comment by dageshi | Hacker News Reader

Bear in mind there are 500 million eligible persons within the EU that may move to Finland if they choose. Once there they cannot legally be treated any differently to a Finnish native.

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I think the rules are quite different, or at least they used to be.

For instance as a French citizen if I find a job in Finland and want to move there, all I have to do is fill a EU form, and there I go. Finnish immigration is not allowed to throw me out of Finland, or deny me the right to work there, because it is my right as a European citizen to work wherever I want in the EU.

But, if I were to simply want to go live in Finland (without a job), I do think Finland is allowed to treat me as a perpetual tourist, that is to say not as a Finnish resident: no state benefits, etc. It might even be allowed to send me back to France, but I am not quite sure about it...

Not really true, if you move to Finland as EU citizen, you won't get Finnish social security right away. You have to work here to apply for it.

How would that work in the case of an unconditional basic income though? If you're not going to have a pre-requisite for native Finnish people to have had a job in order to receive it, can you have a pre-requisite for EU nationals to have a job before they can claim?

The concept you are looking for is that of residency: because you are physically in a country doesn't mean you are a resident of that country. There are rules of residency even within the EU.

I'm not sure, but perhaps it is similar to local voting rights? Do tourists get the right to vote in local elections, or do they have to prove to have lived there for some length of time first?

Here in Norway you have to be a permanent resident to vote in local elections and a citizen to vote in national elections. I think it is broadly similar in the rest of northern Europe.

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