Cartes de séjour, the 90-day rule and increased police checks at the border – the British government is to blame for all of these, according to the EU’s former Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier.
The 70-year-old who lost out in the race to be the presidential candidate for France’s centre-right party said he realised very quickly that freedom of movement for British citizens within the EU was never a real possibility.
“The British imposed a hard line from the beginning of the negotiations – a total exit from all European institutions. It was not obliged to do this. They wanted to exit from everything definitively: the single market with the liberty to move freely, the customs union and the European Union,” he told The Local.
“There are two other countries, Iceland and Norway, who are in the single market without being in the European Union. The door was open to these options,” said Barnier.
Britons who took advantage of freedom of movement to move to France and other EU countries have effectively been “landlocked” by Brexit. They can move home, albeit with obstacles if they have an EU partner, but they cannot move freely to another EU country.
Reciprocity was key in ensuring a smooth transition to the post-Brexit landscape, according to Barnier. The EU offered residency and social rights for Brits living in Europe before December 31st 2020 – and the UK did the same for Europeans.
But the veteran politician remembers that up until the very end of the negotiation process, he was pushing for greater freedom of movement.
“I proposed freedom of movement for artists in the negotiations. This is something I spoke about with Elton John. He asked me what we could do. I told him that I had proposed freedom of movement but that the British didn’t want it,” he said.
“The door is still open for closer relationship with the British in the coming years – I don’t know until when,” said Barnier adding that any change would depend on the “will of the British”.
Barnier hoped to win the primary of France’s traditional conservative party to stand as The Republicans’ candidate at next year’s presidential election. He narrowly missed out to Valérie Pécresse. If she becomes the next leader of France, Barnier could feasibly end up serving as a senior minister.
In this scenario, immigrations to France for citizens from non-EU countries would become harder.
“It will be much less easy because we will hold a referendum next September, which would allow parliament to fix migration quotas every year – like in Canada – for students, family reunification and economic migrants,” said Barnier, seemingly confident of a victory for Pécresse.
“It will not be zero migration, because that is just a slogan, but there will be quotas.”
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Can’t blame M Barnier. The UK government mishandled this from day one, with grandstanding, patronising comments and leaks to the press. Naturally the EU decided not to make it easy.
The citizens of the UK have been punished by an incompetent government.
Who cares? The EU is a fascist cesspit.
“Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he”
Perhaps Barnier could explain why for non-resident Brits , Schengen is a single territory and for resident Brits it’s 26 different countries.
This is incorrect. Schengen is only a territory from a tourist travel perspective as this is a tourist visa non EU citizens can apply for. It confers no rights of residency nor implies any freedom to settle. If you are visiting any Schengen country to do business, study or with the intention of immigrating then you need a business visa or one of the very many other types of visa and permit that are available.
The only one I know of that allows movement between EU countries is the European Blue Card where, after 18 months working for the first company you got the visa for, you can transfer this to another employer in another participating EU country.
As a brit resident in Germany, the Schengen zone feels very much like a single territory.
If i go to france and stay 100 days then come home no one will ever know or really care
The lack of passport checks means anyone could choose to overstay the 90 day rule without getting caught
The only difference is i would lack the right to live or work there
For British tourists the visa gives you the ability to visit with all the same rights i would have in france, but you would have only those same rights in Germany also. Not the right to live and work in Germany that i have
Schengen is a specialist concept. When you cross borders without passport checks its easy to feel like its a single territory when its really a group if territories willing to work closely together for mutual benefit without prejudice, bias, or political point scoring.
If we had dealt with the eu negotiating team like that, we would all have much greater freedoms, and more rights throughout the entire EU, and EEA
Please don’t point the finger a M Barnier – the people responsible, are first and foremost the British PM and the 52%who voted for brexit. Dont you all remember the logo – Save 350,000 pounds per day on the so called battle bus. That was just one example of the british people being misled.
Well said Sal on 08 December. I was staggered at some of the ineffective negotiating postures adopted by UK representatives. If the EU was imperfect in these negotiations, the UK was impressively bad; indeed as results and consequences are showing time after time. And since when is just 52% of those who voted a convincing majority when it equals a convincing minority of those entitled to vote – around 37% wasn’t it!
We would have been completely f**ked over by the Tory government – but luckily EU pushed for a lot of rights for its citizens in U.K. – and Brits in EU got the exact equivalent of that too. Unfortunately freedom of movement didn’t apply here as U.K. is a single country…