EU applicant - permanent residence?

[lamaha]

Hello! I'm about to apply for BC but am nit sure about the following criteria:

If you are a national of a country in the European Economic Area (EEA) or Switzerland, or you are the family member of such a person, you will automatically have permanent residence status if you have exercised EEA free-movement rights in the UK for a continuous five-year period ending on or after 30 April 2006. You do not need to apply for leave to remain. You should have held permanent residence status for 12 months before you apply for naturalisation.

What does the bolded part mean?

I have lived in the UK without break (apart from short holidays, the longest three weeks) since 2001.

I thought that EU citizens autromatically had permanent resiedence? Should I have applied for this seperately a year ago? Do I now have to wait a year to apply for BC?

Grateful for all help -- thanks in advance!

[vinny]

See also The documents we require for naturalisation applications and Naturalization after PR – Shocking Revelations from NCS.

[Jambo]

This basically means you can only apply after 6 years in the UK, 5 years exercising treaty rights + 1 year.

You don't need to apply for a PR confirmation but when applying for citizenship, you will need to provide evidence proving you have exercised treaty rights for 5 years. The AN form used to apply for citizenship has a specific section to fill in for EU cases.