I can assure you that's not the case all over Europe. Nations like the Netherlands, Germany and France (and most likely others too like Scandinavia) have social security systems that allow for a person entitled to social security to live independently in a flat, and the amount they get depends on the rent they have to pay. So, there is full coverage of housing expenses within certain limits. The total amount of social security money allocated consists of other living expenses for food etc. + housing expenses + health insurance.

That means that if someone returns from China and has financial problems because of temporary unemployment would be reasonably taken care of until he finds employment and can take care of himself. If you have no house, they will help you find one and even pay the rent for the first month up-front if necessary. That's a good system.

In the UK, you will be given something like 60 quids a week to cover everything, and that's definitely not enough. Maybe "Great" Britain is not so great (any longer?) and could learn something from the rest of Europe in this respect? Could well be, because humiliating its own citizens while on the dole is not so encouraging, and you will need encouragement and motivation to return to normal life. Seems they need to change their system a bit to match up with the minimum standards the EU has set in this respect.

Should the Brits really leave the EU due to a referendum, good luck to them. We won't miss them as long as the kinds pf people like Cameron are around.

Thanks for your detailed response to my posting. Now I would like to dissect and respond to your posting, if I may?

Scandinavia is very different to the UK of course. These countries have somehow been able to develop into societies with a very high standard of living, but I wonder at what cost in terms of expenses in food and taxes. From having norwegian friends, I have heard Norway is a very expensive place to live in. Also the suicide rates in these countries are rather high, but that could be due to the miserable weather conditions, daylight all day sometimes in some parts in summer, and very cold and long miserable winters. I'd agree it's a good system, the problem is, who pays for it all? What works for one country/set of countries may not well work for others.

Yes, you are right about the UK, I think JSA (jobseekers allowance) is something like 60 quid a week, as you say that's definitely not much. My brother is a full time special needs teacher back home, and his wife runs her own fashion business, and even with their combined incomes they have to resort to shopping at the cheaper supermarket chains just to eat and make ends meet. Especially with two kids to feed, my brother also says (in point to the EU) that he would like to live somewhere like Hong Kong or Dubai where his salary is not going to pay for the poorer parts of Europe. The problem is economic unions always want to become political, look at the new eurasian economic union recently signed, which was proposed by Putin. Kazakhstan and Belarus insisted on it only being an economic union, despite the Russians pushing for the use of russian as an official language, one currency, and free movement over borders and workers and so on. They are getting cold feet already and rightly so, they remember the days of the USSR and being under Moscow's control. Just as the baltic republics worry about leaving one union behind, the soviet one, and joining a new one, the European one. Each one still has unelected politicians at their core, and involves some degree of surrendering national sovereignty in the end.