{"id":51889,"date":"2025-04-26T10:37:13","date_gmt":"2025-04-26T10:37:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/51889\/"},"modified":"2025-04-26T10:37:13","modified_gmt":"2025-04-26T10:37:13","slug":"eu-and-uk-set-to-clash-over-one-year-under-30s-migration-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/51889\/","title":{"rendered":"EU and UK set to clash over one-year under-30s migration plan"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\t\t\t\tThe German ambassador says the starting point of negotiations will be for three years\t\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

The EU and UK are set for a clash over demands to time-limit a mooted deal on easier under-thirties migration, Germany\u2019s ambassador has signalled.<\/p>\n

But Miguel Berger did not rule out Brussels accepting apparent demands by the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to ensure that a UK-EU youth mobility scheme only grants visas for year-long stays to ensure that any young people travelling to Britain do not appear in migration statistics.<\/p>\n

A European diplomatic source later said the EU was willing to negotiate on the UK\u2019s request for a one-year youth mobility scheme but suggested compromise could be made between that and the three years envisaged by Brussels.<\/p>\n

The source also signalled potential opposition to quotas, fees, immigration health surcharge.<\/p>\n

The i Paper reported this week that the EU expects the UK to agree a \u201cclear intention\u201d<\/a> towards agreeing a deal on youth mobility at a landmark summit between the two sides on 19 May.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, reports suggested Cooper is pushing in cross-Cabinet discussions to ensure any deal only grants visas for a year, which is somewhat short of the EU\u2019s plan for a three-year scheme.<\/p>\n

Germany has been one of the biggest advocates in the EU for a youth mobility scheme to form part of Sir Keir Starmer\u2019s Brexit reset<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Asked about a youth mobility scheme limited to one year, Berger told a roundtable hosted by the UK Trade & Business Commission: \u201cWe have to leave that to the negotiations; we have a mandate for the negotiations which asks for a three-year period.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is obviously the starting point of our negotiations.\u201d<\/p>\n

The diplomatic source added: \u201cWe understand why the UK is asking for 12 months minus one day. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf that\u2019s what they put on the table we\u2019re going to look at it; the EU\u2019s proposal, and starting point, is three years \u2013 so we are going to negotiate and see where we end up.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd there are also other variables besides the length of stay like a visa cap, the visa fee, the NHS surcharge.\u201d<\/p>\n

Berger, meanwhile, defended the idea of a youth mobility scheme from critics who suggest it would mark a return to the pre-Brexit days of free movement of people.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cI think it is such a positive thing that we work for the possibility of young people having this experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always push back against this notion that this has anything to do with migration because no, the young people would come here, stay a certain time and then go home.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it has nothing to do with migration to the United Kingdom, and I can tell you that not only in Germany but also in countries like Poland and others, the labour markets are very, very tight, so there is a lot of interest to attract these young people into our own labour force and economy.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we want them to have this experience and possibility.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe second thing is I always hear this is freedom of movement through the back door \u2013 no, it is not, because it will be driven by visas.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cIt is a controlled process that has nothing to do with freedom of movement.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, for me, an important point is that we have a realistic debate of what it really means.\u201d<\/p>\n

More than 60 Labour backbenchers have called for signed a letter calling for \u201ca new and bespoke youth visa scheme\u201d to allow European citizens to travel to the UK and vice versa.<\/p>\n

However, in the Commons, Nick Thomas-Symonds, the EU Relations minister stuck to the Government\u2019s line that youth mobility is \u201cnot part of our plans\u201d, adding that \u201cwe have always said we listen to sensible EU proposals\u201d.<\/p>\n

Youth mobility is a key demand for many European nations for the Brexit-reset negotiations.<\/p>\n

\nReeves calls for \u2018co-ordinated\u2019 defence spending with Europe <\/strong><\/p>\n

By Arj Singh and Will Hazell<\/p>\n

European countries should \u201cco-ordinate\u201d their defence spending in the same way that US states pool their defence spending at the federal level, Rachel Reeves has said.<\/p>\n

In a hint that the UK is aiming to join an EU defence pact that would also include pooled spending and ordering, the Chancellor told the International Monetary Fund\u2019s spring meeting in Washington DC that Europe needed to improve the \u201cinteroperability of defence spending\u201d to \u201cbetter defend our continent against aggression\u201d.<\/p>\n

Her comments came as Sir Keir Starmer and EU chief Ursula von der Leyen met on Thursday in an attempt to add pace to Brexit reset negotiations with the aim of striking a defence deal at a landmark summit on 19 May.<\/p>\n

Von der Leyen suggested talks with Sir Keir Starmer could \u201cpave the way\u201d to the UK joining a European security programme.<\/p>\n

Speaking from Downing Street the president of the European Commission said: \u201cEurope has to step up its defence expenditure, we will discuss that.<\/p>\n

\u201cI very much welcome that quite a few number of countries have recently announced a substantial increase of defence expenditure.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd bilaterally, of course, we will discuss work on a strategic security and defence partnership agreement, which might pave the way then to a joint procurement and UK participation in our Safe programme.\u201d<\/p>\n

Safe stands for Security Action for Europe, a programme that allows EU members and countries who have signed defence and security partnerships to work together on defence procurement.<\/p>\n

The i Paper understands that the talks between the Prime Minister and European Commission President were partly designed to inject momentum into the talks ahead of the UK-EU summit.<\/p>\n

This includes showing to member states, some of whom are thought to be withholding support for a defence pact while demanding a deal on fish, how seriously both senior figures take defence and the need to do a deal<\/p>\n

The presence of the Foreign Secretary David Lammy and defence officials in the meeting came after The i Paper last week reported that Britain was increasingly attempting to link the UK\/EU defence pact to the security situation on the ground in Europe to get an agreement over the line.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This story has been updated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The German ambassador says the starting point of negotiations will be for three years The EU and UK…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51890,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5226],"tags":[802,748,2000,299,5187,1699,4884,6657,3027,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-51889","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brexit","8":"tag-brexit","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-european","13":"tag-european-union","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-migration","16":"tag-politics-news","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114403832327916310","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51889\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}