I have worked in Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and France.
Belgium took 3 years to process the form for national insurance which caused me to draw down about 20,000 Euros. I couldn't drive my European vehicle in Belgium because I didn't have Belgium license plate which was required for insurance. Rather than working for the first 3months, I had to visit the gemeentehuis every alternate day to push some piece of paperwork to some government authority. I couldn't park my car in Belgium outside my property because I didn't have permission to do so because it wasn't a Belgian vehicle. In order to rent a property I needed a Belgian bank account, which I could only get if I was a Belgian resident, forcing me to live in a hotel temporarily and using that as my address. I required my accounts to be signed off by a Belgian notary, of which there is a government enforced limit, so to speak to one for a microsecond cost 1000 Euros minimum. At the time, operating a British company in Belgium cost 17,000 Euros fee. I still receive paperwork from the Belgian government more than 10 years after leaving.
The other countries aren't much better, and the only country that was easy to start working in was the UK.
mmastrac|1 year ago
monsecchris|1 year ago
Belgium took 3 years to process the form for national insurance which caused me to draw down about 20,000 Euros. I couldn't drive my European vehicle in Belgium because I didn't have Belgium license plate which was required for insurance. Rather than working for the first 3months, I had to visit the gemeentehuis every alternate day to push some piece of paperwork to some government authority. I couldn't park my car in Belgium outside my property because I didn't have permission to do so because it wasn't a Belgian vehicle. In order to rent a property I needed a Belgian bank account, which I could only get if I was a Belgian resident, forcing me to live in a hotel temporarily and using that as my address. I required my accounts to be signed off by a Belgian notary, of which there is a government enforced limit, so to speak to one for a microsecond cost 1000 Euros minimum. At the time, operating a British company in Belgium cost 17,000 Euros fee. I still receive paperwork from the Belgian government more than 10 years after leaving.
The other countries aren't much better, and the only country that was easy to start working in was the UK.