Brussels will pay the costs of “settled status” residency applications for more than three million EU nationals in Britain after Brexit, in a plan said to be backed by Jean-Claude Juncker.
The European Commission president will agree to pay Home Office bills of up to £230 million for EU citizens to secure their permanent residency rights in Britain, a source in Brussels said.
The proposal to pick up the bill, tabled by Guy Verhofstadt, the European parliament’s negotiator, and senior MEPs as a way for the EU to win the moral high ground in Brexit talks, had been “positively received” by Mr Juncker, the source added. “Juncker was open to the idea, which puts the EU on the side of citizens in Brexit and makes the British look petty for charging,” they said.
The plan has remained a closely guarded secret until now because the EU is still using Brexit negotiations to press Britain to pay the costs and waive the administrative fees.
The commission estimates that there are 3.2 million European nationals living in Britain who would all be automatically entitled to permanent resident rights under British settled-status proposals, although some may already have residency. Exact numbers of EU nationals eligible for settled status, including in a two-year “grace period” after Britain leaves, will depend on a looming row over when European free movement rights end.
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The British government wants automatic residency rights for European migrants to end on Brexit day, March 29, 2019, but the EU is pushing for the date to be delayed until after a transition period, prolonging full free movement until at least 2021. Under current government proposals the “fee for applying for this status will not exceed the cost of a British passport”, which is £72.50 — potentially creating a bill for the EU budget of about £230 million.
The proposal of using the EU budget to fund the administrative costs of establishing residency for Europeans living in Britain will be controversial because it will not cover similar costs for people in other countries.
If agreed upon, British taxpayers would contribute some £30 million via payments that will continue to the EU budget until the end of 2020.
The government is planning a simplified online application process to register EU nationals living in Britain from the second half of this year. European nationals will have to demonstrate five years of continuous residence, beginning before Brexit, and pass a criminal record test. Hundreds of thousands of EU nationals who had already successfully applied for permanent residence documents would not be charged a further fee if they converted to settled status.
People whose applications are rejected will have a right of appeal, with the final decision to be taken by the British courts but fully taking into account EU case law for up eight years after Brexit.
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A new battle over residency rights is looming in Brexit negotiations next month as the EU demands that European nationals are given an automatic right to remain permanently in Britain until the end of a two-year transitional period instead of when Britain formally withdraws in 2019.
Negotiating documents agreed upon by the EU27 last week state that “the provisions of the citizens’ rights part of the withdrawal agreement should apply as from the end of the transition period”.
The new demand means that up to a million EU nationals, their spouses and families, including non Europeans, arriving in the UK after Brexit but before 2021 would be eligible for automatic residency rights for an indefinite period of time.
British and EU officials are meeting this week to draft the legal text of a withdrawal agreement covering residency rights, but not settling the end date of free movement.