UK and Sweden agree ‘everybody should be able to stay’ after Brexit: EU minister

Sweden's EU affairs and trade minister Ann Linde insists that the UK and Sweden have the "same vision" when it comes to making sure that Swedes living in the UK and Brits living in Sweden have the right to stay where they are after Brexit.

Published: 14 February 2017 11:33 CET
Updated: 14 February 2017 17:30 CET

UK and Sweden agree 'everybody should be able to stay' after Brexit: EU minister

Sweden's EU affairs and trade minister Ann Linde and the UK's Brexit secretary David Davis. Photo: Maja Suslin/TT

Linde met Britain’s Brexit Secretary David Davis in Stockholm on Tuesday, following on from a previous meeting in London last January. And the British MP insisted that securing the rights of Brits living in EU nations like Sweden is a priority for the UK government in its forthcoming negotiations over leaving the union.

“We are determined to get a good outcome for EU citizens in Britain and Brits in the EU, to protect the rights of British citizens and EU nation citizens and get an answer quickly,” he told the media at the Swedish Foreign Ministry’s office in central Stockholm.

“We would have liked to have an answer already, but it will be the very first thing on the negotiation agenda once they start. We understand people feel uncertain,” he added.

Linde said that it is important people who had “used their rights as EU citizens don't become a bargaining chip in the Brexit negotiations”, referring to EU citizens currently living in the UK and vice versa.

She added that both the UK and Sweden appear to be on the same page when it comes to finding a solution for them, but stopped short of backing the fast-tracking of Brits applying for Swedish citizenship, saying that is a decision to be made at EU level.

“Just like the British parliament voted no to that proposal in their parliament, we think we have to take this together in the negotiations between the EU and the UK and see it in a comprehensive way,” Linde told The Local.

“But, we of course want it to be one of the first things dealt with in negotiations.”

The Swedish EU affairs minister said there have been discussions on finding solutions for the around 100,000 Swedes living in the UK and 30,000 Brits in Sweden, but explained that there are still important details which need to be hammered out once negotiations start.

“We have the same vision that it should be possible for everybody to stay, but there are many details. It’s not so easy,” she noted.

“What does it mean to stay when you’re outside the EU? When you're inside the EU, you have all the rights. You don't have to have specifics. But when you’re outside the EU, you have to say for example: will Swedes get the same pension rights? Will they get the same social rights, labour benefits they have while being a member of the EU? That has to be detailed out, of course.”

Davis meanwhile stressed that Britain wants to have a broad trade agreement which would reduce the impact of leaving the EU on businesses trading between Britain and Sweden, but conceded that it will not be identical to the ones currently in place through EU membership.

“We want to have a very broad ranging free trade arrangement so Swedish companies selling to Britain, and British companies selling to Sweden will have the same sorts of freedoms they have today – they won’t be identical of course,” he noted.

The British politician also added that a successful EU is to the UK’s benefit as it is “incredibly important that the big, powerful neighbour on our doorstep is successful economically and socially and is a good friend”.

Davis said the UK government expects to trigger Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty and formally launch the Brexit process by “the end of March, sometime during March”.

Faced with Russia’s war in Ukraine, the potential return of Donald Trump as US president and competition from China, the new commission will need to steward the EU at a time of global uncertainty.

To confront the challenges, von der Leyen handed powerful economic portfolios to France, Spain and Italy — with a hard-right candidate from Rome taking a top role in a commission seen shifting broadly rightward.

“It’s about strengthening our tech sovereignty, our security and our democracy,” the commission chief said as she announced the team at the European Parliament in Strasbourg.

France’s outgoing foreign minister Stephane Sejourne was handed an executive vice president role overseeing industrial strategy, after von der Leyen ousted Paris’s first nominee.

Spain’s Teresa Ribera, a socialist climate campaigner, was also made an executive vice president, tasked with overseeing competition and the bloc’s transition toward carbon neutrality.

As Russia’s war against Ukraine grinds on through a third year, security and defence assumed a new prominence.

Former Lithuanian prime minister Andrius Kubilius landed a new defence role overseeing the EU’s push to rearm, making him one of several hawkish Russia critics in eastern Europe to receive a prominent position.

Those also include Estonia’s ex-premier Kaja Kallas, already chosen by EU leaders as the bloc’s foreign policy chief.

And Finland, another country neighbouring Russia, saw its pick Henna Virkkunen given a weighty umbrella role including security and tech.

As part of the bloc’s careful balancing act, the German head of the EU executive had to choose the lineup for her second term from nominees put forward by the other 26 member states.

That has meant treading a political tightrope between the demands of competing national leaders — and putting some noses out of joint.

The highest-profile casualty was France’s first-choice candidate Thierry Breton, who quit suddenly as internal market commissioner on Monday accusing von der Leyen of pushing Paris to ditch him.

Von der Leyen fell short in her efforts at gender balance, ending up with 40 percent women after pressuring member states for female nominees.

But women obtained the lion’s share of executive VP roles, with four of six posts.

Controversial Italian pick

The choice of who gets which job is an indication of where Brussels wants to steer the European Union — and the weight commanded by member states and political groupings after EU Parliament elections in June.

Cementing its status as parliament’s biggest group, Von der Leyen’s centre-right European People’s Party commands 15 of 27 commission posts — to the chagrin of left-wing lawmakers like France’s Manon Aubry who warned of a lurch “far to the right” in terms of policies too.

Among the powerful vice presidents is Italy’s Raffaele Fitto, handed a cohesion brief in a nod to gains made by far-right parties in the June elections.

Giving a top role to a member of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s post-fascist Brothers of Italy party has raised hackles among centrist and leftist groups — while Meloni said it “confirms the newfound central role of our nation in the EU”.

After Green party losses at the June ballot, whether climate would remain high on the agenda and which commissioners would steer green policy was a subject of scrutiny.

As well as Ribera’s overarching role, the centre-right Dutchman Wopke Hoekstra will carry on in a position handling climate and the push to make the EU carbon neutral.

Among other eye-catching choices, Croatia’s Dubravka Suica obtained a new role overseeing the Mediterranean region, and the enlargement gig went to Slovenia’s Marta Kos — yet to be confirmed as her country’s candidate.

Other important figures going forward look set to be Slovakia’s Maros Sefcovic, handling trade, and Poland’s Piotr Serafin, who will steer negotiations over the bloc’s next budget.

All would-be commissioners still need to win approval from the European Parliament, with hearings to start in coming weeks.

Lawmakers could flex their muscles by rejecting some candidates — or at least dragging them over the coals, as expected with Italy’s Fitto.

Chief among those suspected for the chopping block are Hungary’s Oliver Varhelyi, nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s man in Brussels these past five years, who received a diminished portfolio covering health and animal welfare.

The stated target is to have a new commission in place by November 1st, but diplomats say that looks ambitious, with December 1 more likely.