Four years after the United Kingdom officially left the EU, the Conservative Government and the Labor opposition, which may soon be in power, are looking for ways to reopen their labor market to young Europeans in the face of the lack of labor in key sectors.
Maria, Brexit and “the trap” of the will of the people
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak repeats his goal of cutting net migration – the difference between those leaving and those arriving in the country – and on January 1 announced as a triumph a new rule preventing foreign students from bringing their family members to the UK. At the same time, its Ministry of the Interior plans youth mobility agreements to make it easier to hire workers from some EU countries who no longer occupy the positions of waiters, cooks, shopkeepers and transporters as before Brexit.
The mayor of London, Labor Saqid Khan, reopened the debate by asking a few days ago for a special mechanism that facilitates travel and jobs for Europeans under 35 years of age and that applies at least to their city, one of the places most affected by the loss of EU students and workers. His proposal is to sign a reciprocal agreement, that is, it would also apply to British people who want to live and work in Union countries.
Khan is running for re-election in May elections in a city estimated to be home to more than a million EU citizens, many of whom have the right to vote in municipal elections. In London, furthermore, the majority of Britons voted to stay in the EU in the 2016 referendum.
Young people are the most angry and affected by the restrictions imposed by the United Kingdom’s departure from the EU. The majority of Britons of any age are now against Brexit, according the surveysand the percentage reaches 70% among those between 18 and 24 years old — who could not vote in 2016 because they had not reached the age of majority — and 66% among those between 25 and 49.
“This is the kind of proposal that will appeal to many voters in London. It is also a stronger position than the one Keir Starmer has taken in the Labor Party as a whole, because they are obviously fighting in a different political context throughout the United Kingdom,” Joël Reland, an academic researcher specialized in the relations between the EU and the United Kingdom think-tank UK in a Changing Europe. “You can’t really do much when it comes to changing the trading relationship with the EU.”
Lack of workers
Khan is one of the few politicians even in his party who dares to talk about Brexit and its solutions. But his idea is something that the Conservative Government itself has been ruminating on for months.
The lack of workers is also pushing the British Home Office to seek youth mobility agreements such as those it already has with New Zealand, Australia and Canada. Now, the UK has so far attempted to negotiate bilaterally, rather than with the European Commission, which would open the door to a broader plan like the one Mayor Khan suggests.
EU Member States already have bilateral agreements of this type even with the countries with which they have signed trade agreements managed by the European Commission. But the United Kingdom is not just another country for Europeans.
“It is a special case. All 27 Member States used to have access to the United Kingdom. And potentially if one or two recover it, if some people recover it and others don’t, that creates division between the Member States and puts pressure on the Commission,” explains Reland, who believes that the countries with which the United Kingdom would sign a plan They would be France, Spain, Germany or Italy, that is, the large countries with many employees and that do not have the stigma of the caricatures propped up for years by the local conservative press against workers from Central and Eastern European countries.
The newspaper The Times published in July last year that Spain is among the countries that the British Conservative Government is considering for this possible agreement in addition to Germany, France and Switzerland. The Ministry of Inclusion, Migration and Social Security of Spain, competent in this type of agreement, “has not received proposals or contacts in this regard,” according to a spokesperson consulted by elDiario.es. The Ministry does know of the United Kingdom’s intentions to sign agreements of this type with several countries.
Until now, Spain has mobility agreements for young people with Korea, Japan, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Bilateral agreements
The current Foreign Minister, David Cameron, has defended bilateral negotiations for the moment, but the EU is interested in exploring a joint framework for these possible agreements.
Pedro Serrano, EU ambassador to the United Kingdom, commented on Tuesday in a conversation with his British counterpart in Brussels that Europeans are always “watching” to “detect” what he described as “the old British tradition” of going directly to the large EU countries to make bilateral agreements and move the Union in the desired direction. But he also recognized that in this case the powers are shared. The EU is consulting with governments on a possible joint framework and is very interested in youth mobility because it is something that “societies on both sides want” and for the EU it is important that young people “continue to forge the common European identity.”
“One of the things that people miss is the ease of more exchanges between our societies,” Serrano said at the meeting organized by UK in a Changing Europe. He also commented on the lack of clarity at the moment from the British Government: “We need a position at government level,” he said.
Lindsay Croisdale-Appleby, British ambassador to the EU, explained that “it is easier to negotiate with the Member States”, although, in the more general conversation about the relationship between the United Kingdom and the EU, he acknowledged that it all depends on how far they want new leaders of both the British Government and the EU institutions after the elections this year.
The future Government
In the United Kingdom, Labor will win the next general election comfortably, according the surveys. And they already suggest that they will take advantage of the 2026 review of the trade and cooperation agreement with the EU to try to improve the details of the relationship that has brought more povertyfewer workers, more paperwork and more suffering for their own citizens. However, for the European Commission, this is in principle a “technical” review, not an appointment to reopen the agreement that took years to negotiate.
In any case, Starmer now tends to avoid Brexit so as not to reopen wounds and not focus the debate on the migration that the tories They try to agitate as a campaign issue.
The Conservative Party defends measures against migration, also legal, for which the Government is imposing more restrictions, for example for family reunification. However, complaints from the public health sector, one of the most affected by the lack of workers, have forced Sunak to rectify some of the announced requirements at the end of last year.
Pending paperwork
In addition, there are still tens of thousands of EU citizens pending paperwork to have their rights to work and reside in the United Kingdom recognized because they were in the country before Brexit came into force. As of September 30, 2023, there were still around 140,000 applications to be reviewed, including those of more than 5,700 Spaniards.
After several articles of Guardian on EU citizens stuck in post-Brexit paperwork limbo, British Home Office a few days ago relaxed again a criterion that had tightened: has decided to reconsider ignorance of pre-settlement paperwork as a possible justified cause for the delay in submitting applications.
At the same time, the British Government continues to fail to comply with the ruling of the United Kingdom High Court of December 2022 that requires it to simplify the settlement process for EU citizens who were in the country before Brexit came into force. .
The official agency for the surveillance of citizens’ rights (HAVE, in its acronym in English) asked the Government for explanations a few days ago so that the Ministry of the Interior “make a public statement that clarifies the rights of citizens” according to the exit agreements with the EU. Miranda Biddle, the head of the independent authority, said: “Although the Home Office has been effective in many cases, some citizens are suffering from uncertainty which is having an impact on their ability to live, work and raise families.”
2024-01-28 22:27:35
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