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Brits in Sweden will get to vote in EU referendum

British nationals who have been living in Sweden for less than 15 years will be allowed to vote in the EU referendum, while most citizens from other EU countries who are living in the UK will have no say on whether the nation in the European Union, the British government has announced.

Published: 25 May 2015 14:17 CEST
Brits in Sweden will get to vote in EU referendum
Prime Minister David Cameron has pledged that Britain will hold a referendum on the EU. Photo: AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis

Prime Minister David Cameron made it an electoral pledge to hold a referendum on whether to stay within the EU, a vote that will take place by the end of 2017.

Now his office has announced who be able to vote in the referendum, and eligibility will be roughly the same as in a UK general election.

DEBATE: Give us a vote: we've got most to lose if UK quits

This means British nationals who have been living abroad for less than 15 years will have their say on whether or not the UK remains in the European Union.

But those living abroad for more than 15 years will not be allowed to vote on the future of the UK in Europe, the new voting criteria confirms. 

The move comes as a potential 'Brexit' remains a hot topic in European media.

Swedish foreign minister Margot Wallström told The Local in an exclusive interview on Friday that it would be “a very serious blow to the entire EU” if the UK left.

"Unfortunately, I have also seen that the media picture has been very, very negative in the UK in a way that has raised some eyebrows elsewhere – that you can claim almost anything unopposed and that is sad. We have to hope that there will be a more nuanced debate,” she added.

INTERVIEW: 'We would miss Britain if they left'

The EU Referendum Bill will be officially announced after the Queen's speech on Wednesday, and legislation confirming the voting eligibility for the referendum will be introduced to Parliament on Thursday May 28th.

It is understood that Irish citizens living in the UK will also be eligible to vote as well as Commonwealth citizens including those from Gibraltar, Malta and Cyprus.

In a statement released after the announcement, Gibraltar’s Chief Minister Fabian Picardo said, "David Cameron has been true to his word to the people of Gibraltar and, as a British part of the EU, our voice will be heard as part of the franchise for this seminal exercise in democracy."

Around one million other EU nationals who are resident in the UK will not be allowed to vote in the referendum however.

British citizens under the age of 18 will also not be eligible to vote, provoking calls, led by the Scottish National Party, for the voting age to be lowered to 16. Over-16s were allowed to vote in the Scottish independence referendum in September 2014, as were EU nationals based in Scotland.

DEBATE: Will Brexit force Brits from Sweden?

Prime Minister David Cameron is due to meet with several European leaders this week to discuss EU reforms. He will meet with the leaders of Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Poland while also meeting with EU President Jean-Claude Juncker in the UK on Monday.

Many British residents abroad are likely to vote for the UK to remain a member of the European Union.

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IMMIGRATION

Border centres and ‘safe’ states: The EU’s major asylum changes explained

UPDATE: The EU parliament has adopted a sweeping reform of Europe's asylum policies that will both harden border procedures and force all the bloc's 27 nations to share responsibility.

Published: 8 April 2024 09:42 CEST
Updated: 11 April 2024 10:29 CEST
Border centres and 'safe' states: The EU's major asylum changes explained

The parliament’s main political groups overcame opposition from far-right and far-left parties to pass the new migration and asylum pact — enshrining a difficult overhaul nearly a decade in the making.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen hailed the vote, saying it will “secure European borders… while ensuring the protection of the fundamental rights” of migrants.

“We must be the ones to decide who comes to the European Union and under what circumstances, and not the smugglers and traffickers,” she said.

EU governments — a majority of which previously approved the pact — also welcomed its adoption.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Greece’s migration minister, Dimitris Kairidis, both called it “historic”.

French President Emmanuel Macron said Europe was acting “effectively and humanely” while Italian Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi hailed what he termed “the best possible compromise”.

But there was dissent when Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban derided the reform as “another nail in the coffin of the European Union”.

“Unity is dead, secure borders are no more. Hungary will never give in to the mass migration frenzy! We need a change in Brussels in order to Stop Migration!” Orban said in a post on social media platform X.

For very different reasons, migrant charities also slammed the pact, which includes building border centres to hold asylum-seekers and sending some to outside “safe” countries.

Amnesty International said the EU was “shamefully” backing a deal “they know will lead to greater human suffering” while the Red Cross federation urged member states “to guarantee humane conditions for asylum seekers and migrants affected”.

The vote itself was initially disrupted by protesters yelling: “The pact kills — vote no!”, while dozens of demonstrators outside the parliament building in Brussels held up placards with slogans decrying the reform.

The parliament’s far-left grouping, which maintains that the reforms are incompatible with Europe’s commitment to upholding human rights, said it was a “dark day”.

It was “a pact with the devil,” said Damien Careme, a lawmaker from the Greens group.

Border centres

As well as Orban, other far-right lawmakers also opposed the passage of the 10 laws making up the pact as insufficient to stop irregular migrants they accuse of spreading insecurity and threatening to “submerge” European identity.

Marine Le Pen, the figurehead of France’s far-right National Rally, complained the changes would give “legal impunity to NGOs complicit with smugglers”.

She and her party’s leader who sits in the European Parliament, Jordan Bardella, said they would seek to overturn the reform after EU elections in June, which are tipped to boost far-right numbers in the legislature.

The pact’s measures are due to come into force in 2026, after the European Commission first sets out how it would be implemented.

New border centres would hold irregular migrants while their asylum requests are vetted. And deportations of those deemed inadmissible would be sped up.

The pact also requires EU countries to take in thousands of asylum-seekers from “frontline” states such as Italy and Greece, or — if they refuse — to provide money or other resources to the under-pressure nations.

Even ahead of Orban’s broadside, his anti-immigration government reaffirmed Hungary would not be taking in any asylum-seekers.

“This new migration pact practically gives the green light to illegal migration to Europe,” Hungary’s Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said before the vote, adding that Budapest “will not allow illegal migrants to set foot here in Hungary”.

‘EU solidarity’

German’s Scholz said on X that the accord stands for “solidarity among European states” and would “finally relieve the burden on those countries that are particularly hard hit”.

One measure particularly criticised by migrant charities is the sending of asylum-seekers to countries outside the EU deemed “safe”, if the migrant has sufficient ties to that country.

The pact resulted from years of arduous negotiations spurred by a massive inflow of irregular migrants in 2015, many from war-torn Syria and Afghanistan.

Under current EU rules, the arrival country bears responsibility for hosting and vetting asylum-seekers and returning those deemed inadmissible. That has put southern frontline states under pressure and fuelled far-right opposition.

A political breakthrough came in December when a weighted majority of EU countries backed the reforms — overcoming opposition from Hungary and Poland.

In parallel with the reform, the EU has been multiplying the same sort of deal it struck with Turkey in 2016 to stem migratory flows.

It has reached accords with Tunisia and, most recently, Egypt that are portrayed as broader cooperation arrangements. Many lawmakers have, however, criticised the deals.

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