Brussels are hoping to create a ‘more palatable’ EU-UK youth mobility scheme. However, the UK government say they have ‘no plans’ for any mobility scheme.
A draft European Commission proposal is supposedly in motion, with plans to include a youth mobility scheme for people aged 18-30 in the UK and EU. Initially, this scheme would have given young people the right to travel for four years, but this may be cut to two or three.
Despite this attempt to appeal to the UK’s new Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, some European diplomats suggest the country is not a priority to the EU:
‘We are much less concerned with the UK than the UK is with the EU,’ said one diplomat in The Guardian. ‘There is absolutely room for improvement in the relationship but the biggest pain has been removed and the UK is not top of the agenda. If Keir Starmer wants us to come to the table, don’t expect us to drop everything to have that conversation.’
Speaking on the proposal in The i, Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper said:
‘Net migration trebled in the last four years, and underpinning that is overseas recruitment […] The European reset is important. We want very close co-operation, but the UK voted to leave the EU, and that was also as part of the manifesto we were clear that there was no return to free movement or to the customs union or to the single market.’
It remains to be seen what the EU will propose, but the document is expected to be ready before the end of the year.
