People do not go straight to the welfare office upon losing unemployment.
But actually, they do - almost. Not the next day, but around the next week... My son lost his job last Friday and he's already signed on again. The longer you leave it, the greater the chance you'll be denied benefit because the contribution periods or whatever won't add up any more.
If Poland wants to refuse EU citizens welfare
However you read the article, it makes it abundantly clear that anyone, Polish or EU citizen, in that position would have been denied benefits. He must have waited until the eligibility period (around 6 months if I did my homework) was over.
But if this happened to a high taxpaying Pole in the Ireland and the U.K. - it would be a media sh*tstorm for days.
You think so? I have heard numerous stories of temporarily unemployed Poles NOT getting JSA, even with all the correct paperwork presented and all that. No sh*tstorm ever ensued, somehow.
To sum up, I think that if you live in a country for 20 years and are obviously doing a white-collar job, you should be able to master the subtleties of the ancient art of applying for benefits, if even the humblest labourer is able to do that. And if you don't, it's nobody's fault but yours.