The EU is set to present Sir Keir Starmer with his first major Brexit headache within weeks as it reveals its demands for easier youth movement to and from the UK.
Brussels negotiations on the shape of a concrete offer to the UK on a youth mobility scheme are expected to reach a conclusion within one or two months, i understands.
Making it easier for young EU citizens to travel to the UK, and vice versa, is believed to be a price the Prime Minister has to pay to strike the security and trade deals which are central to his Brexit reset.
It means Starmer will need to take a position on whether to allow potentially hundreds of thousands of young Europeans to move to the UK for extended periods in exchange for unlocking talks on a defence pact and a veterinary agreement to ease cross-border trade in food.
Starmer has so far been cold on Brussels’ plans for a youth mobility scheme, with draft proposals published by the European Commission in April calling for 18-to-30-year-olds to be given the right to travel to the UK and vice versa for up to four years, and for British universities to stop charging Europeans with higher international student fees.
With the Government under pressure over high levels of immigration and university finances, Starmer has repeatedly said he has no plans to agree to such a policy and stressed there would be no return to “free movement” under his premiership.
But i understands that the EU believes the Prime Minister has not made this a red line in Brexit reset talks and is willing to negotiate on its proposals.
Hopes in the UK that the Commission’s April proposals, which have been described as “maximalist” and likened to free movement, may be watered down by EU member states in the European Council are likely to be dashed, with i learning that the final offer is not expected to deviate much from the original plan.
Brussels believes a youth mobility deal can be done within months.
This could help unlock a veterinary agreement to ease UK-EU trade in food and agriculture within 18 months to two years, i understands.
Keir Starmer visited to Berlin last month to open talks on a potential trade pact, where Chancellor Olaf Scholz stressed the desire for better youth mobility.
The EU is also understood to be open to a security pact that is wider than defence and the military and could include other measures to boost security resilience, suggesting areas like energy could be on the table, which will please Labour.
The UK Government is still not considering a youth mobility scheme, despite recent overtures from Europe, and will not agree a return to the free movement of people, i understands.
Anand Menon, director of the UK In A Changing Europe think-tank, told i that there was “no doubt” that youth mobility “is an issue that matters to the EU” and was one of their “key asks”.
“As such, it increasingly seems that unless we are willing to make some sort of movement on it, they will not give us much, they will not take the reset seriously, so we’re going to have to do something.
“That raises all sorts of questions – including whether Labour have created a rod for their own back by talking about it so negatively so far.
“The narrative has taken root that Keir Starmer thinks youth mobility is like free movement and then if he concedes on it, people will believe he is conceding on free movement.
“How you talk about this is really important.”
Prof Menon said he was not surprised that the EU would put forward demanding proposals on youth mobility because “you start from a negotiating position trying to extract as much as you can”.
He said there were elements of the draft proposals from April which Starmer would not be able to countenance.
“I would be stupefied if the Government were to accept domestic fees for EU students when the sector is in massive crisis, so there’s a negotiation to be had.”
Prof Menon also suggested the EU might want to end suggestions that youth mobility would be a return to free movement of people by “packaging” it as a visa scheme.
He also suggested that a youth movement scheme could be packaged with British asks for the mutual recognition of professional qualifications and concessions to make touring Europe easier for artists in a wider mobility deal.
Prof Menon said some EU member states may be resistant to a wide-ranging defence and security pact if it was seen as “securing economic concessions for security cooperation”.
“There are people who feel that security cooperation is so important that it is worth making concessions on the economic stuff for, I just don’t think there is a consensus behind that.
“My sense is that’s going to be a harder sell.”
The EU’s draft youth mobility proposals, published in April:
The planned scheme would set out conditions, including the age and maximum duration of stay (the Commission says it should be between 18 to 30 years, with up to four years of stay) as well as conditions of eligibility and rules for verifying compliance.
The proposal adds that UK citizens would only be granted mobility within the member state where they have been admitted and not the other 26 EU countries.
The Commission also wants equal treatment of EU and UK students when it comes to fees: after Brexit, EU students were moved from a “home” to “international” status, which varies between £11,400 and £38,000 per year. Student visas are another issue, and can be £490, while the healthcare surcharge is usually £776 a year.
