EUROPEAN students who attend secondary schools in England or Wales may qualify for thousands of pounds of government loans and grants, the European Court of Justice ruled yesterday.

The judgment came after a French student contested laws that prevented him from gaining a maintenance loan to study at university in London. Last night Barry Sheerman, the chairman of the Education and Skills Select Committee, said that he was concerned that the ruling should not become yet another measure for “people to ask for loans and not repay them”.

Dany Bidar applied to Ealing Borough Council for a loan when he enrolled at University College London after moving to England in 1998 so that his mother could receive medical treatment.

He lived with his grandmother and attended a London school for three years, the council agreed to help with his tuition fees, but refused to grant him a maintenance loan.

EU citizens are currently eligible for maintenance grants only if they have been “settled” in England or Wales for at least four years, which does not include being in full-time education. That can include children of parents from EU states who have worked in England or Wales for a number of years.

However, the court ruled that although the Government’s rules were legal, the student’s schooling had “established a genuine link with society”.

“The court makes clear that a national of a member state who, like Mr Bidar, lives in another member state where he pursues and completes his secondary education, without it being objected that he does not have sufficient resources or sickness insurance, enjoys a right of residence,” the judges said. But the judgment, which fcame after a four-year legal battle by M Bidar, is not expected to open the floodgates for thousands of EU citizens to demand cheap loans weeks before beginning their courses.

The Luxembourg-based judges said that to prevent maintenance loans from becoming “an unreasonable burden”, the Government was entitled to insist that certain reasonable residence criteria had first to be respected, before foreigners can qualify for the financial assistance.

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