EU working on fresh mobility plan for UK

EU member states are working on an updated proposal for a youth mobility scheme with Britain after an earlier paper by the European Commission was rejected out of hand by Labour in April, it has emerged.

-  Lisa O'Carroll

EU sources say the 27 countries hope to come up with viable negotiating points for Brussels in coming weeks to feed into the expected negotiations on a reset of EU-UK relations being sought by the prime minister, Keir Starmer.

It is thought new proposals would also allow Starmer's team a fresh start on the issue, including a possible counter-proposal, and minimise any political opposition by Eurosceptics.

The conversation in EU capitals comes as the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, spoke of a lamentable decline in interaction with Britain's young people across the EU.

"The contacts between our societies, between Germans and people in the UK, have declined massively after Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic," Scholz told reporters on Wednesday. "We want to change that; if you know each other very well you understand each other better."

The German ambassador to the UK, Miguel Berger, said it was vital people understand that youth mobility had nothing to do with migration or free movement.

"We hear over and over the argument that [youth mobility] is freedom of movement when it is not, as it is based on visa requirements and limited time periods. People leave after a set time."