Home Secretary Sajid Javid is demanding European Union Brexit negotiators allay concerns about the treatment of British expats after the UK leaves Europe.
He admonished Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament’s contact point for everything Brexit, for not making clear how member states are working towards preserving the rights of British expats in their countries.
At the same time, he laid out British post-Brexit plans for dealing with EU nationals.
“The UK Government also cares very deeply about the reciprocal arrangements for UK nationals living in the EU27 Member States,” the letter says.
“We are concerned that as yet we have seen little information about the practical arrangements for securing their rights under the Withdrawal Agreement.”
Home Office designing online app
Around 900,000 British expats live in the EU, with 3.2 million EU nationals having made the trip across the Channel to settle in the UK.
The Home Secretary gave a detailed description of how the Home Office will deal with applications to stay from EU nationals.
The Home Office is building online software to ease the application process that will digitally confirm identities without needing paper confirmation or appointments with immigration officers.
Family members will each have to apply separately to maintain a ‘consistent approach’ to granting residency, said Javid.
“Our default position for those who have been in the country for five years or more will be to say yes,” he said.
Concerns for future
But Javid is worried that the EU is lagging the UK in setting up systems to approve residency and uncertainty is concerning British expats who have moved their lives abroad who would like to plan for the future.
“The UK Government is equally committed to the interests of UK nationals living and working in the EU, and we would welcome further details on how the administrative procedures will be enacted in other Member States,” he said.
“It is currently unclear what systems other EU member states are creating to ensure the rights of UK nationals in their countries are protected after the end of the implementation period and we would welcome it if the European Parliament were also willing to focus attention on member states.”
I live in Spain and neither the Spanish government nor the EU have given us any new information or news etc .. No support pages or email alerts etc like the UK government is doing . We are as much in the dark as we were in June 2016 . We need some idea of what is happening now .. We have to get our papers in order and the procedure needs to be understood by the relevant authorities in Spain .. The longer it is left the more likely it will be misunderstood and executed incorrectly by the authorities.. Causing mass refusals or demands for paperwork that shouldn’t be necessary . I already have very little faith in Spanish civil servants .