While prime minister Keir Starmer is keen on improved relations with the European Union – after Brexit – “on a number of fronts, including the economy, defence, exchanges, but we do not have plans for a youth mobility scheme”, he said during his recent visit to Germany.
Youth mobility schemes are common across the world with countries providing a streamlined approach for young people to travel overseas for a strictly limited time and purpose. They are essentially ‘backpacker visas’, wit the young person getting to move to a foreign country to do some casual work or study providing they don’t get into trouble, cost the host government anything or overstay their welcome.
The scheme are typically on the basis of mutual recognition, giving young people from both countries the same rights. Britain currently has such a scheme with several countries, most notably Anglophone countries such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand, plus longstanding Asian allies including Japan and South Korea.
Following Britain leaving the EU and the end of free movement, there had been interest from some European countries in securing similar arrangements. This would have allowed Britain to pick and choose the countries that it wished to work with and risked looking like the richer EU member states were collaborating with British attempts to discriminate against countries less affluent.
So, the European Commission suggested that it would deal with negotiations with Britain over a youth mobility scheme instead of leaving it to the member states. It should be noted that this is unusual, given each individual member state is responsible for non-EU immigration into their own country, and even close trading partners of the EU such as Canada technically have individual arrangements with each member state.
However, it is understandable why EU want one negotiation rather than from 26 member states. But the terms that the European Commission is asking for, which go far beyond what youth mobility scheme typically cover, are not reasonable.
Not only do they want the visas to last for four years, whereas for most countries Britain offers a maximum two years. It also wants Britain to waive the healthcare surcharge, and for people travelling on the visa to have the same access to public-funded higher education courses as local residents.
This would break the clear principle that such schemes do not entitle the recipient of the visa to access public funds during their stay.
This principle is so important that Britain currently requires people to have over £2,000 in savings before they can enter the country to prove they can support themselves.
And given the high tuition fees Britain charges compared to other countries, and the much greater demand for British higher education compared to European universities, it is a clear attempt to resume a one-sided subsidy.
And above all, the Commission would also want people travelling to be able to bring family members with them and for Britain to charge EU citizens less for the visas than it does those of other countries.
This would not be considered a youth mobility scheme by any account. Its terms are totally different to what Britain has with other countries around the world and are also different from what European nations have with other non-EU nations. It is simply an attempt to bring back freedom of movement somewhat sneakily in another way.
The Commission’s proposal, as it stood, for the UK-EU youth mobility would be hugely favourable and advantageous to the EU and it is of little surprise that the UK is unable to accept it despite the newly elected prime minister’s wishes for closer relations with the European Union.
Andy Jalil
The author is our foreign correspondent based in the UK
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