On 18 April 2024, the European Commission published a recommendation that EU member state governments agree to open negotiations with the UK Government for an agreement on youth mobility between the EU and the UK.
This blog sets out the detail of the Commission’s proposal, the likely UK response and how this Commission recommendation might become a part of the EU-UK relationship.
The European Commission proposal
The UK’s departure from the EU saw an end to free movement for EU nationals to the UK, and UK nationals across all EU member states. The Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) which governs relations between the EU and the UK following EU exit did not include any provisions for mobility (meaning living in the EU or the UK).
The aim of the European Commission’s proposal is to:
“address in an innovative way 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.”
The Commission has proposed that the new arrangements should cover those aged between 18 and 30 years old and that it would enable a person to stay for up to 4 years in the destination country. Significantly, the Commission proposes that there need not be a specific purpose for such a stay (such as for studying training or working) and that in effect it would be open to an eligible person to make their own decisions about what they wish to do in the destination country beyond living there. The European Commission has said that a youth mobility scheme would not be the same as freedom of movement:
“The envisaged agreement would provide for limited-in-time mobility, subject to the fulfilment of conditions to be checked before the mobility can take place. The conditions should also be met during the stay. It is not about conferring to young UK nationals the benefits of the fundamental freedom of movement enjoyed by EU citizens.”
In addition, the proposal is clear that for UK nationals, the proposed agreement would not grant intra-EU mobility rights. Instead, the admission of a UK national by a Member State under the envisaged agreement would only be valid for that Member State. As a result, travelling for up to 90 days within the rest of the EU would be subject to the conditions in the Schengen acquis or national legislation.
The conditions placed upon eligibility proposed by the Commission include:
- Possession of a valid travel document,
- valid comprehensive sickness insurance,
- proof of sufficient means of subsistence.
According to the Commission, those conditions would have to be checked before the mobility and remain consistent during the duration of stay.
The Commission’s proposal also suggests any agreement would also set out relevant grounds for rejection of applications such as threats to public policy, public security or public health.
UK tuition fees, student and work visas and the healthcare surcharge
The European Commission has also set out that another aim of the proposed agreement is to remove UK tuition fees for EU nationals by re-introducing equal treatment between EU and UK nationals. According to the Commission’s Q&A on the proposal:
“As a consequence of Brexit, most EU students (unless being beneficiaries of the citizens’ rights part of the Withdrawal Agreement) who wish to study in the UK are no longer entitled to home tuition fees and must pay overseas or international tuition fees.
The level of tuition fees for international students for an undergraduate degree varies between £11,400 and £38,000/year, while the average costs is estimated to be around £22,000/year.
Tuition fees in EU public universities are generally not that high for international (non-EU) students.
The envisaged agreement would provide for equal treatment of EU and UK students as regards higher education tuition fees.”
In addition, the Commission’s proposed agreement would seek to ensure that that visa/residence permit fees are neither disproportionate nor excessive for those EU nationals covered by the agreement. It would also remove the healthcare surcharge for those falling under the scope of the agreement.
How might the UK respond?
As the European Commission has recognised, the UK Government has sought to agree individual youth mobility agreements with a number of Member States. However, the Commission has made this proposal to seek to ensure that all Member States are treated equally in respect of mobility of young people to the UK.
The UK already has a Youth Mobility Scheme which allows successful applicants aged between 18 and 30 or 18 and 35 depending on where someone is from to live and work in the UK for up to two years. However, the scheme does not apply to nationals from EU member states.
In an answer to a parliamentary question in the House of Lords in November 2023, the Home Office Minister Lord Sharpe of Epsom set out the UK Government’s view of youth mobility agreements with EU member states:
“The UK remain open to negotiating Youth Mobility Scheme (YMS) arrangements with other countries and territories, including EU Member States. However, as each YMS is subject to a bilateral, reciprocal agreement which also provides benefit to UK nationals, with the detail negotiated and agreed between the relevant parties, we are unable to disclose the status of negotiations as they occur…
…We remain committed to expanding our YMS to more nations, including but not limited to those within the EU. Further details of additional YMS agreements will be announced once they are concluded.”
Following the announcement by the European Commission, the UK Government is yet to say whether it would favour a Youth Mobility agreement with the EU as a whole rather than seeking agreements with individual Member States.
In December 2023, the EU-UK Parliamentary Partnership Assembly – a group made up of members of the European Parliament and the UK Parliament (the devolved legislatures have observer status) recommended that the EU and UK sought to reach an agreement “to improve the opportunities for youth mobility between the EU and the UK”.
The way ahead
This recommendation from the European Commission is the first step in the EU’s own process. As a recommendation to Member States it will now be for representatives of Member State governments to agree whether they wish to pursue a mobility agreement with the UK and if they do, agree the negotiating mandate to give to the European Commission. The negotiating mandate may make changes to the Commission proposal. The European Commission would then be responsible for the negotiations with any agreement subject to approval by the EU Member States and the European Parliament.
For any negotiations to take place, it will also require the UK Government to adopt a policy approach in favour of a youth mobility scheme with the EU as a whole and then discuss the details of such a scheme. Whilst the current UK government has not given any indication of adopting this approach, the Commission may be seeking to agree an EU wide position over the coming months given a future UK Government may adopt a different approach and with a UK general election due to take place by January 2025.
However, shortly after the Commission proposal was announced, the Financial Times reported that the Labour Party would not pursue a youth mobility scheme as it saw such a scheme as “synonymous with freedom of movement”.
Iain McIver, SPICe Research