FAQ: Post-Brexit residence deadline for UK and EU citizens

 

FAQ: Post-Brexit residence deadline for UK and EU citizens

 

EU citizens in Britain and Brits in four EU countries must apply for residence status by June 30.

 

A Downing Street spokesperson said Monday that the U.K. would not be extending its deadline of June 30 for EU nationals who still need to to apply for U.K residency under the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement |

 

BY CRISTINA GALLARDO

June 21, 2021 3:42 pm

https://www.politico.eu/article/post-brexit-residence-deadline-looms-large-over-uk-and-eu-citizens/

 

LONDON — A life-changing deadline for EU citizens living in Britain and U.K. citizens in the EU is days away, but thousands risk missing out.

 

At the time of the Brexit divorce deal talks, 13 EU countries plus Britain decided to establish a mandatory residence scheme for their nationals living in each other’s territories. These citizens must apply to the scheme or risk an unlawful migration status.

 

June 30 is the deadline for applications in Britain, France, Latvia, Luxembourg and Malta (other countries have a later deadline) but citizens’ rights campaigners have warned that many who are entitled to protection under the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement are unaware they must apply in time.

 

How many people are we talking about?

No one is quite sure.

 

By May 31, the British government had received more than 5.6 million applications to its EU Settlement Scheme, launched at the end of March 2019. Of these, 4.9 million were submitted by EU citizens with the remainder coming from nationals from Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland, as well as from non-EU family members of all those citizens.

 

The Home Office estimates that this corresponds with about 5.2 million individuals, since some people may have applied more than once. The figure was far higher than expected. With registration not required previously, the Home Office had no estimates of how many EU27 citizens had chosen a life in the U.K., but officials had expected to receive applications from about 3.4 million people. Irish citizens do not need to apply for settled status because they benefit from the Common Travel Area.

 

That underestimate of the number of EU citizens resident in the U.K. is particularly stark among nationalities such as Bulgarians, Italians, Portuguese, Romanians and Spanish. The estimate of Romanians eligible for residence status in the U.K. was 400,000, but more than 800,000 have already applied to the British scheme.

 

But for all the extra people applying, there is mounting concern that many who are entitled to do so have not. “Even if you just have a 1 percent failure rate of people who should have applied and haven’t, you’re talking about way over 50,000 individuals,” warned Catherine Barnard, an EU law professor at the University of Cambridge. “No government scheme has ever had 100 percent people applying to it. There’s a real concern about those who will not have applied.”

 

Kathryn Dobson, a spokeswoman for the campaign group British in Europe, fears this may also be the case in France, where she lives. A broad estimate puts the number of Brits in France eligible for residence status at between 150,000 and 200,000, but that number also includes children under 18 who do not need to apply — unlike EU children in Britain, who are required to do so. The French scheme, launched in October 2020 after a delay caused by the coronavirus pandemic, had received about 125,000 applications by the end of April.

 

“We don’t know how many Brits live in France. The U.K. never counted us out and France never counted us in,” she said. “Until four years ago, the U.K. embassy in Paris was focused mostly on trade, it wasn’t talking to citizens — that wasn’t its role. So they’ve struggled to find how many British citizens there are, where they are and how to reach them.”

 

In Latvia, where the scheme opened in October 2020, the government received 421 applications by the end of April. That’s out of an estimated 1,200 eligible Brits, according to the most recent official figures. In Luxembourg, where the scheme launched in July 2020, the number of applications reached 3,600 out of an estimated 5,300-strong British population.

 

In Malta, which has been welcoming applications since February 2020, the government received 8,300 over the same period, but the estimates indicate about 13,600 Brits should apply. The low number of applications in Malta is partly due to the imposition of “very burdensome residence testing and bank account" there, the U.K.’s minister for the European neighborhood, Wendy Morton, told MPs Tuesday.

 

Who is in danger of missing out?

The British government has complained to the EU that some countries in the bloc have not made enough efforts to advertise their residence schemes.

 

With just days to go before the deadline, campaigners are rushing to reach the most vulnerable groups, including children and older people in care; dementia patients; homeless people; victims of domestic violence or modern slavery; those with poor language skills, and workers in the black economy or in low-paid jobs in remote locations such as farms.

 

In the case of the U.K. scheme, there’s an additional group: carers from a non-EEA state who look after a British child or dependent adult. These are often parents from Nigeria, Guinea and Pakistan of British children.

 

What changes after the deadline?

The EU and the U.K. disagree over their interpretation of the Brexit divorce deal when it comes to the consequences for those who miss the deadline. Both sides are due to hold technical talks this week on the matter, but the European Commission is worried EU nationals in the U.K. who fail to apply might be subject to the Home Office’s hostile environment policies. That would mean the loss of their rights to work, rent property and access public services including education and health.

 

The Brexit Withdrawal Agreement allows governments to grant people extra time to apply if they had “reasonable grounds” not to do it in time. The French government is yet to issue this guidance but has committed to being generous. The U.K.’s guidance, published in April, makes it clear that rough sleepers with proof of their condition, and children in care whose carers fail to submit an application on their behalf, will be covered by that exemption, but questions remain about other circumstances.

 

“Our hope is that the Home Office use some good common sense about trying to sweep up all of those who have not yet applied because they didn’t know,” Barnard said.

 

Will it be extended?

The Netherlands, which also requires Brits to register as residents, has postponed its June 30 deadline to September 30 in order to give more time to U.K. nationals yet to apply. There are no indications at the moment that the U.K. or the other four EU countries with a hard deadline at the end of this month will follow suit.

 

A Downing Street spokesperson on Monday said the U.K. would not be extending its deadline, adding: "We set out pretty clearly the need for people to come forward ahead of the deadline." Yet Immigration Minister Kevin Foster hinted at some flexibility Tuesday, when he told MPs the “default position” to be taken by immigration officers encountering an EU national who has not applied for residence status will be to issue them with a notice encouraging them to apply in the following 28 days — protecting their rights and access to public benefits.

 

After that period, the Home Office “would take them on as individual cases." He said there would "not be a block-removal of support given the type of situations we could be talking about,” Foster said, in reference to vulnerable people.

 

Luke Piper, director of policy at the3million, a group that campaigns for the rights of EU nationals in Britain, said both sides are likely to adopt a more pragmatic approach after the deadline. “The rhetoric is going to quickly switch after the deadline on both sides of the Channel with people missing it and people not getting status — I think we will see a step change.”

 

How do you prove your status?

The biggest difference between the U.K. and the EU countries when it comes to citizens’ rights is the fully digital nature of the British residence scheme. Europeans granted status must log in to a government website in order to prove their rights.

 

Many fear what could happen if hackers modify or delete their government-held personal data or bring down the website temporarily. They also worry how to prove status to landlords or employers who lack smartphones or digital skills. EU nationals must also keep the Home Office informed of any changes in their personal data, and upload a scanned version of their passports every time they are renewed. Some have reported incorrect pictures or names on their digital certificates.

 

This contrasts with the European Commission’s decision to issue biometric residence cards to Brits in the EU, which will state their rights under the Withdrawal Agreement. France has committed to issuing all residence cards by October 1. Britain, which is transitioning toward a “digital by default” immigration system, insists a digital proof is cheaper for the taxpayer, and cannot be lost or stolen.

 

Backlogs are also a reason for concern on both sides of the Channel. The U.K. is dealing with a backlog of more than 300,000 applications, and campaigners say there are many unresolved cases in France as well.

 

Last week, Foster, the U.K. immigration minister, told lawmakers those waiting for status will be able to rely on their online certificate of application as proof to their employers, landlords, bankers and others. Dobson said British people in Europe had not yet heard from the French government on this issue.

 

What other quirks are there to look out for?

The French residence scheme appears to penalize early birds, Dobson added. “Some of the oldest applications are processed last, so those people who perhaps submitted their applications in October or November last year haven’t had their cards through or their meetings to pick up their cards yet, while people who applied two or three weeks ago had.”

 

Meanwhile, British-French dual nationals trying to apply to the French scheme have received an email telling them the scheme is not relevant for them, Dobson said, making it harder for them to exercise certain rights. For instance, bringing a family member to France is much easier as a British resident protected by the Withdrawal Agreement than as a French citizen.

 

And there are more problems on the horizon. The residence schemes differentiate between people with five or more years of continuous residence, and those with fewer than five. The latter group must reapply once it reaches the five years mark, raising the possibility of people losing out if they fail to apply in future.

 

This article was updated on June 22 to add further comments from U.K. immigration ministers

 

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