Abstract
Keir Starmer, a strong supporter of the Remain campaign during Brexit, became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in July 2024. Since then, many hoped for stronger relations between the EU and the UK, as the Prime Minister declared his wish to “reset” the relations with the European Union. Under this new British government, the potential to reach some commitment from the UK on a youth mobility framework between the EU and the UK could represent an important step forward in the EU-UK relations post-Brexit.
This article analyses the role of youth mobility in shaping the current priorities between the United Kingdom and the European Union, with a particular focus on the historical context of immigration as a key factor in the Brexit decision. The article also elaborates on the stance of the British government on the relations with the European Union, highlighting the current positions of both parties.
To conclude, the article will delve on the meaning behind the term used by The British Prime Minister to “reset” the relationship between the UK and the EU taking into account the current positions and advancements in a post-Brexit environment.
Author
Gabriel Silini - Senior Researcher, Mondo Internazionale G.E.O. - Politics
Introduction
The UK, under its immigration system, currently offers youth mobility visas, which allows young people from specific nations to live and work in the country for a maximum of three years. Currently, only young citizens from India, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Korea, Andorra, Iceland, Japan, Monaco, San Marino, and Uruguay are eligible for the youth mobility visa. However, the UK has in the past year shown interest in expanding its current youth mobility scheme visa to specific EU Member States, while it rejected the idea to extend the visa to the EU as a whole (Smith Stone Walters, 2024).
The main reason behind the current British position on youth mobility is the shortages in the labour market in many sectors, ranging from restaurants to constructions. As a consequence, many UK industries are pushing the government to reach agreements with European countries.
Despite the EU formally allowing Member States to reach individual youth mobility schemes with non-EU countries, the Brexit-related challenges do represent an exception. One must consider that during the Brexit negotiations the UK banned any conversation on Erasmus or any student exchange between the UK and the EU, leaving the Union dissatisfied with the result (Foster, 2023).
In addition, the main preoccupation within the EU is that the UK is offering a vague youth mobility scheme, as the British main issue lies in the shortage of workers in lower skilled sectors. The European Commission urged the Member States to avoid any bilateral agreements with the UK, following an important strategy used during the negotiations for Brexit. The strategy to negotiate as a bloc and not as a single country proved to be extremely effective during Brexit, as the EU as a whole has a much stronger leverage than any Member State alone.
As a consequence, to prevent any bilateral agreement on youth mobility which might be disadvantageous for the Member States, the European Commission pushed to include youth mobility as a priority in the EU agenda for possible negotiations with the UK (European Commission, 2024).
One of the main reasons behind Brexit: Immigration
On the 23rd of June 2016, the United Kingdom (UK) decided to leave the European Union and the Brexit negotiations shaped the British and European political agenda of the following years until today.
During the Brexit negotiations, migration was viewed as the one of the most important issues in favour of leaving the EU. The EU-citizenship issue has always been the most difficult point in the discussions, as the EU sought to give as many rights as possible to its numerous people residing in the UK, while UK citizens opted to leave the EU specifically to prevent immigration from the EU. As a result, the stances of the two parties on this issue are critical to understand the Brexit discussions. During the referendum campaign, Brexit supporters blamed migration for draining the country's resources (Gietel-Basten, 2016). In 2015, the then Home Secretary Theresa May stated:
[...] When immigration is too high, when the pace of change is too fast, it is impossible to build a cohesive society. It is difficult for schools and hospitals and core infrastructure like housing and transport to cope. And we know that for people in low-paid jobs, wages are forced down even further while some people are forced out of work altogether (Gietel-Basten, 2016).
Interestingly, the narrative regarding migration of the Brexit years from 2012 until recently highlighted that there was no good side to immigration. Not only the Leave side of the UK was arguing that immigration is negative, but also the Remain side stressed that immigration is a price to pay to avoid economic destruction. The most recent European Union enlargements were especially significant, as they dramatically increased British immigration rates. The Vote Leave campaign addresses:
The EU is expanding to include: Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey. When we joined, there were just nine member states. Now there are twenty-eight, the most recent being Romania, Bulgaria and Croatia. Five more countries are in the queue to join totalling eighty-nine million people. When they join they will have the same rights as other member states (Gietel-Basten, 2016).
It is worth noticing that, on the other hand, the UK has always championed enlargements of the Union, probably to avoid the “Ever-closer Union” France and Germany were aiming to (Ker-Lindsay, 2017). The United Kingdom has traditionally been a strong backer of EU enlargements, having welcomed Bulgaria and Romania in 2007 and Croatia in 2013. At the same time, the UK firmly believed in the importance of allowing Turkey's entry into the EU, as well as urging Western Balkan nations to join the Union.
However, this drastically increased the migration flow within the EU from the new members to strong countries like the UK and the Scandinavian region. Following the EU's 2004 enlargement, which added 10 new nations, the UK saw a substantial influx of workers from those countries. To prevent this influx, all EU nations, except for the UK, Ireland, and Sweden, temporarily restricted labour market access for the new Member States. The UK's support for EU expansion resulted in unprecedented immigration, leading to Euroscepticism (Vargas-Silva, 2014). In 2015, net migration from the EU peaked at 184,000 immigrants (BBC Radio, 2016).
British lawmakers and national media acknowledged that the UK could no longer manage EU migration due to the EU's jurisdiction over the topic. Ring-wing publications emphasised the UK's powerlessness, and populist politicians saw the threat posed by EU immigration. From 2010 to 2015, anti-immigration sentiment was concentrated on EU migration, causing numerous Brexiteer parties, such as UKIP, to gain political importance (D’Angelo and Kofman, 2017).
For this reason, the UK during Brexit wanted to block freedom of movement of EU citizens entering the UK, while it wanted UK citizens to maintain their rights of movement within the EU. Nonetheless, as the EU stressed on several occasions, by leaving the EU, the UK will not be able to receive the benefits of EU Member States, including the freedom of movement of persons. As such, the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement did not include provisions regarding free movement of EU or UK citizens within the UK and EU.
The UK and the possibility for a youth mobility agreement with the EU
On April 18, 2024, the European Commission authorised through a Council Decision the start of negotiations between the EU and the UK to reach an agreement on youth mobility. Since the entry into force of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) in 2021, this is the first time that the EU has proposed to negotiate a legal framework for the movement of individuals between the EU and the UK.
As previously mentioned, the freedom of movement for EU and UK citizens terminated with Brexit, showing a constantly increasing outflow of EU nationals from the UK. This flow also applies to youth mobility, which has decreased by more than 50% compared to the pre-Brexit era. In particular, migration to the UK from the EU for studying purposes decreased by more than 70% (Office for national Statistics, 2024).
Based on the recent negative inflow of students and talents from the EU, the UK has started in 2023 approaching some selected Member States to negotiate some bilateral arrangements on mobility. Nonetheless, this worried the European Union, fearing that some Member States might decide to bilaterally start negotiations with the UK. As a result, the Commission asked for a negotiating mandate to the Council to prevent any bilateral agreements that might endanger the credibility of the Council's position, which adopted on 23 March 2018 the full reciprocity and non-discrimination among Member States (Council of the European Union, 2018).
It must be taken into consideration that the UK has indeed been interested in youth mobility in the early Brexit negotiations in 2018, but the shift of political class of that year changed the stance of the UK towards Brexit, resulting in a different government position that in 2019 no longer included youth mobility in the negotiations with the Union.
Given this intricate framework, it is unlikely that the European Commission decided to proceed with the negotiations to actually reach an agreement with the UK on youth mobility in the near future. On the contrary, it is more likely that the Commission´s main aim was to prevent bilateral negotiations, showing that the EU must negotiate as one with the UK. Nonetheless, the willingness from the EU to discuss youth mobility should not be underestimated, as it will most likely shape the discussions with the UK in the upcoming months.
It must also be considered that the proposal advanced by the EU is far more progressive than the current position of the UK on immigration and mobility. Both the UK conservatives and the Labour party showed their scepticism, adding that the proposal of the EU would reintegrate in the UK framework a “European preference” in the immigration system. In addition, the proposal from the EU would go much further than any youth mobility programme that the UK has in place with other countries, which would be seen by the British citizens as a return of EU free movement (Walker, et al, 2024).
Anti-immigration politics is in the UK still an important issue, which endangers a clear position of the British government on a youth mobility scheme. In fact, the cabinet seems to be split on the matter, especially as many advocates of pro-Brexit and “no deal Brexit” see a youth mobility scheme with the EU as the beginning of joining the European freedom of movement of persons. As a result, any commitment on youth mobility could potentially endanger the stability of the Labour government.
The new British Government and its stance towards the EU
Keir Starmer, strong supporter of the Remain campaign during Brexit, became Prime Minister of the UK in July 2024. With this new British government, the EU expects to reach an agreement on youth mobility. Prime Minister Starmer already visited Italy, Germany, France and Ireland, sharing the importance of youth mobility both for the EU and the UK.
The British Prime Minister also visited Brussels for a meeting with Ursula von der Leyen in October 2024 (BBC News, 2024). However, there was no mention of youth mobility, leaving many Europeans discouraged by the result of the meeting. Nonetheless, the EU Ambassador in the UK Pedro Serrano explained that migration still represents one of the crucial topics for the UK:
There is the fear of migration. It's a big topic not only in this country but in Europe as well. And we have to see how we're going to be facing that working together more effectively. But it has nothing to do with the youth mobility scheme (BBC News, 2024).
During the campaign, the Prime Minister Starmer clearly stated that the UK will not rejoin neither the EU nor its Single Market, including the Freedom of Movement of Persons. Furthermore, Starmer reiterated more than once that the current government has no plans for a youth mobility framework with the EU.
Despite the lack of plans of the current British government regarding youth mobility, the EU has once again set its priorities for future negotiations, including the matter of youth mobility. During his visit in Brussel in October 2024, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer did not only meet the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, but also Charles Michel, Chair of the European Council, and Roberta Metsola, President of the European Parliament. Nonetheless, as promising this might have looked, there was no particularly binding commitment regarding EU-UK future relations.
In spite of the lack of commitment, both parties agreed on a full integration of the Withdrawal Agreement, including the Windsor Framework and the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, which might be seen as a remark from the EU that the UK needs to fully implement the measures in the agreements, and this might be a prerequisite for any possible “reset” that the British Government aims for in its relationship with the EU (Policy Commons, 2024).
During the meeting between the British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, the two parties agreed on the mutual commitment for a stable and forward-looking relationship and cooperation. During the press release, they also agreed to define the areas where strengthened cooperation is needed and would be mutually beneficial, such as economy, security, energy and resilience. Notably, mobility has failed to be mentioned as one of the priorities. Nonetheless, the most important point reached during the discussion was the inclusion in the agenda of regular EU-UK Summits at leader-level, in order to regularly check the development of the EU-UK relations, with the first Summit ideally already in early 2025.
Although many were left discouraged by the results of the October meeting between the UK and EU, the seasoned Brexit analyst Anton Spisak of the Centre for European Reform stressed the importance of the Summits taking into account the reticence of both parties to implement regular meetings in the past years:
It’s easy to downplay this moment, but I spent the last few years advocating for regular summits to coordinate strategic cooperation, and both the Commission and the UK government refused to engage with the idea. Baby steps, but we’re moving forward in EU-UK relations (Spisak, 2024).
Conclusions
As the article proved, the relationship between the EU and the UK is still far from being a close partnership, and the shadow of Brexit is a key player in the resentment that both parties hold towards each other. The EU, in particular, seems to be willing to establish a closer relationship only with clear terms, while at the same time address the discontent Brexit left in the Union, especially regarding the movement of citizens.
Brexit has undeniably resulted in a loss for mobility between the two parties, specifically affecting younger generations. The proposal from the EU aims at tackling the issue, allowing young people to spend up to four years in the EU or UK with less bureaucratic paperwork than older citizens. As such, the proposal still does not imply a paperwork-free mobility scheme of the pre-Brexit era.
Nonetheless, the British political opinion is, as proved throughout the article, not entirely unified on granting a young mobility scheme to the EU, as this move could endanger the already weak stability of the government and could cause many Brexiteers to argue that the UK is moving towards the EU Single Market.
It must also be noted that the term “reset,” although welcomed positively by Europeans, still remains a fairly ambiguous term, with no clear vision on how to restore the relations between the Union and Great Britain. The UK will need to prove how far it intends to restore the relationship with the Union, and an agreement on youth mobility would definitely represent “a token of good faith,” as stressed by the UKICE Director Professor Anand Menon (Policy Commons, 2024). As the EU is now pushing the UK for commitment and a clear position on youth mobility through its soft power, it can be expected that the newly established regular summits will see the topic quite high on the agenda.
To conclude, although the young mobility scheme sounds reasonable for many Europeans, the article proved that the UK political and public spheres are still utterly divided, resulting in the British government not clearly addressing the issue. Considering the current situation, the establishment of regular summits is a reasonable and extremely positive first step for the Union to potentially influence the British public opinion, demonstrating the importance of a stronger cooperation between the two parties in the next years.
Classification of sources and information:
1 | Confirmed | Confirmed by other independent sources; logical in itself; coherent with other information on the topic |
2 | Presumably true | Not confirmed; logical in itself; coherent with other information on the topic |
3 | Maybe true | Not confirmed; reasonably logical in itself; coherent with some other information on the topic |
4 | Uncertain | Not confirmed; possible but not logical in itself; no other information on the topic |
5 | Improbable | Not confirmed; not logical in itself; contradicts with other information on the topic |
6 | Not able to be evaluated | No basis to evaluate the validity of the information |
Trustworthiness of the source | ||
A | Trustworthy | No doubt about authenticity, reliability or competence; has a history of total trustworthiness |
B | Normally trustworthy | Small doubts about authenticity, reliability or competence, nevertheless has a history of valid information in a majority of cases |
C | Sufficiently trustworthy | Doubts about authenticity, reliability or competence; however, has supplied valid information in the past |
D | Normally not trustworthy | Significant doubt about authenticity, reliability or competence, however has supplied valid information in the past |
E | Not trustworthy | Lack of authenticity, reliability or competence; history of invalid information |
F | Not able to be evaluated | No basis to evaluate the validity of the information |
References
BBC News. "The Brexit Legacy and the Future of UK-EU Relations." BBC News. Accessed November 30, 2024. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3615r012d5o. 2A
BBC Radio. "Six O’Clock News, 26/05/2016: Net Migration to UK Reaches Second Highest Level." BBC. May 26, 2016. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07bt4tp (Accessed August 25, 2024). 2A
Council of the European Union. "XT-20001-2018-INIT: Negotiation Directive for an Agreement Between the EU and the UK on Youth Mobility." European Union Council. Accessed November 30, 2024. https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/XT-20001-2018-INIT/fr/pdf. 1A
D'Angelo, A. and Kofman, E. "UK: Large-Scale European Migration and the Challenge to EU Free Movement." In Research Series South-North Migration of EU Citizens in Times of Crisis, edited by Jean-Michel Lafleur and Marta Stanek, 175–192. Liège: Université de Liège, 2017. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-39763-4_10 (Accessed August 25, 2024). 2B
European Commission. "EC Proposes Negotiations on Youth Mobility between EU and UK." Migrant Integration. Last modified October 2024. https://migrant-integration.ec.europa.eu/news/ec-proposes-negotiations-youth-mobility-between-eu-and-uk_en#:~:text=The%20withdrawal%20of%20the%20United%20Kingdom%20%28UK%29%20from,reach%20agreement%20on%20the%20facilitation%20of%20youth%20mobility. 1A
European Law Blog. "The Thin Edge of the Wedge: Youth Mobility Between the EU and the UK." Last modified May 9, 2024. https://europeanlawblog.eu/2024/05/09/the-thin-edge-of-the-wedge-youth-mobility-between-the-eu-and-the-uk/#more-10023. 2B
Foster, P. "Is AI a Threat to Management Consultants?" (2023) Financial Times, November 29, 2024. https://www.ft.com/content/aea7ba84-0e89-4bee-aaa5-785499ef2d59. 2A
Gietel-Basten, S. "Why Brexit? The Toxic Mix of Immigration and Austerity." Population and Development Review 42, no. 4 (2016): 673–680. https://www.jstor.org/stable/44132229?seq=1 (Accessed August 24, 2024). 2B
Ker-Lindsay, J. "The United Kingdom and EU Enlargement in the Western Balkans: From Ardent Champion of Expansion to Post-Brexit Irrelevance." European Politics and Society 17, no. 4 (2017): 555–569. https://doi.org/10.1080/14683857.2017.1397958. 2B
McGowan, L. Preparing for Brexit: Actors, Negotiations and Consequences. 2018. https://books.google.it/books?hl=it&lr=&id=IJU4DwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR5&dq=negotiations+brexit&ots=4Q43QlnRUg&sig=YQl_2MxUlA8Vsi862rnGQDh17Yk#v=onepage&q=negotiationsbrexit&f=false. 2A
Office for National Statistics. “Long-term international immigration, emigration and net migration flows, provisional.” Accessed December 04, 2024. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/datasets/longterminternationalimmigrationemigrationandnetmigrationflowsprovisional. 1A
Policy Commons. "Britain’s Brexitism Test." Policy Commons. Accessed November 30, 2024. https://policycommons.net/artifacts/17116866/britains-brexitism-test/18005374/. 2B
Silini, G. Negotiating the Future of EU and UK Citizens After Brexit. Unive.it, 2023. http://dspace.unive.it/handle/10579/23107. 2B
Smith Stone Walters. "Will the UK and the EU Ever Agree on Youth Mobility Scheme Proposals?" Smith Stone Walters, November 2024. https://smithstonewalters.com/news/will-the-uk-and-the-eu-ever-agree-on-youth-mobility-scheme-proposals. 2B
Spisak, A. "@AntonSpisak." X.com. Accessed November 30, 2024. https://x.com/AntonSpisak/status/1841501671416791218. 2A
Vargas-Silva, C. "Migration Flows of A8 and Other EU Migrants to and from the UK." Migration Observatory. Oxford, 2014. www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk. 2A
Walker, A., Davies, C. et al. "UK-EU Relations 2024." UK in a Changing Europe. 2024. https://pureadmin.qub.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/615177192/UKICE-UK-EU-Relations-2024.pdf. 1B
Riproduzione Riservata ®