UK rejects EU proposal for bloc-wide Youth Mobility agreement

On 18 April 2024, the European Commission proposed to the European Council to open negotiations with the United Kingdom to facilitate a post-Brexit youth mobility agreement. Such an arrangement would make it easier for young EU and UK citizens to live, work and study in the UK and the EU respectively.

Addressing the proposals, Maroš Šefčovič, Executive Vice-President for European Green Deal, Interinstitutional Relations and Foresight said: “The United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union has hit young people in the EU and the UK who would like to study, work and live abroad particularly hard. Today, we take the first step towards an ambitious but realistic agreement between the EU and the UK that would fix this issue. Our aim is to rebuild human bridges between young Europeans on both sides of the Channel.”

However, on Friday evening the UK government responded and appeared to categorically rule out any post-Brexit mobility deal with the EU, with a government spokesperson stating: “We are not introducing an EU-wide youth mobility scheme – free movement within the EU was ended and there are no plans to introduce it.”

The proposed EU scheme would not exactly replicate the free movement regime, as the permission granted would be time-limited, and UK participants would only be able to stay in the EU country that accepted them. However, it would significantly reduce immigration controls on young people moving between the UK and EU, with no recommended cap on overall numbers.

Background to the proposal

According to the Commission, the withdrawal of the UK from the EU has resulted in decreased mobility between the EU and the UK. This situation has particularly affected the opportunities for young people to experience life on the other side of the Channel and to benefit from youth, cultural, educational, research and training exchanges.

The proposal seeks to address the main barriers to mobility for young people experienced today and create a right for young people to travel from the EU to the UK and vice-versa more easily and for a longer period of time.

What did the EU propose?

The EU’s proposed agreement would be at a bloc-wide level, not a collection of parallel bilateral deals at the level of the Member States. The European Commission has said the deal would be a limited arrangement, not a restoration of free movement.

Th EU’s envisaged agreement on youth mobility would include a number of conditions, such as:

• Limiting the scheme to young EU and UK citizens aged 18 – 30.
• Limiting the period of stay to a reasonable timeframe of up to 4 years.
• Allowing mobility to be exercised for different purposes including work, study, training, internships, research, volunteering or just visiting / travelling during the period of stay.
• Mobility would not be subject to a quota.
• Mobility to the Union would only be exercised in the Member State that admitted the UK national, i.e. the admission by one Member State would not allow for “intra-Union” mobility to another Member State.
• The UK’s Immigration Health Surcharge (IHS) should be waived for EU beneficiaries under the scheme.

Why has the UK rejected the offer?

In rejecting the offer, Downing Street has made it clear that the government has no interest in ‘restoring free movement’ by entering into any EU-wide mobility arrangement.

Despite rejecting the proposal, the UK has previously shown interest in the issue of youth mobility between the UK and the EU, by reaching out to several unnamed Member States individually to try and negotiate deals.

The UK already runs schemes with some non-EU countries to allow young people to come to the UK for up to two years, under its Youth Mobility Scheme visa. The government says it is open to extending that to individual EU member countries, rather than throughout the EU.

But the EU side will not currently accept the idea of country-by-country deals as this risks “differential treatment” of EU citizens. Instead, the UK would need to agree to an arrangement that would apply across all 27 EU Member States.

Next steps

Despite the UK’s rejection of the outline offer, EU officials have said they are still open to negotiation. However, any decision to open talks with the UK would be at the discretion of EU governments, which would also have to agree on the terms to be negotiated.

If a deal is eventually struck, it would be the first such agreement the bloc has entered into with any country outside the European Economic Area (EEA), except Switzerland.

Under the UK’s current Conservative government, it seems unlikely that an EU-wide Youth Mobility Scheme will be agreed upon. The Labour party leadership has also confirmed that they have ‘no plans’ for a youth mobility scheme if they win the general election later this year.

In the meantime, EU nationals wishing to live and work in the UK must continue to seek permission under the UK’s post-Brexit immigration routes.

Smith Stone Walters will continue to monitor the situation and provide further updates in due course. To keep up to date with the latest UK and Global immigration news, please sign up to our newsletter here.