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SPAIN AND THE UK

Can Spain and the UK legally create a ‘free movement scheme’ for young people?

With recent reports that Sánchez and Starmer have discussed potentially setting up a 'youth mobility scheme' between Spain and the UK, would such a deal between an EU and non-EU country be viable or does it contravene the bloc's rules?

Published: 30 July 2024 10:10 CEST
Can Spain and the UK legally create a 'free movement scheme' for young people?
Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer at a bilateral meeting with Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, at the European Political Community meeting, at Blenheim Palace in Woodstock, southern England, on July 18, 2024. (Photo by Kin Cheung / POOL / AFP)

British media reported over the weekend that Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has discussed with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer the possibility of a ‘youth mobility scheme’.

Both The Guardian and The Telegraph have reported that Sánchez raised the idea during a meeting at the European Political Community summit hosted at in the UK recently.

Starmer reportedly told Sánchez he would think about the idea. When in opposition, Starmer said his Labour Party no plans for any such scheme when Rishi Sunak turned down a similar idea from the European Commission that would have given free movement to 18 to 30 year olds.

There have long been calls for expanded cooperation between the UK and EU when it comes to learning and cultural exchanges such as a youth mobility scheme.

Spain and the UK have both bucked rightward electoral trends across Europe in recent years, and the Sánchez and Starmer governments are two of the leading left-leaning governments in Europe. This could, some hope, indicate the beginning of a closer UK-Spain relationship.

University exchange programmes like Erasmus were also previously a big part of this relationship, as well as the tourism industry and the hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals living in each country.

But with Sánchez rekindling the idea of some sort of youth mobility scheme, in whatever form it takes, one has to wonder if it’d even be possible.

Can Spain and the UK legally create their own youth mobility scheme?

In theory, yes. Or rather, maybe – depending on the specifics. Whether or not it’s realistic is another question. EU member states can make unilateral agreements and investment treaties with non-EU countries, so long as they satisfy various EU legal requirements.

Spain, for example, already has reciprocal arrangements with several non-EU countries. Spain’s working holiday visa, also known as a ‘Youth Mobility visa’, is a scheme that allows young people from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Japan and South Korea to live and work in Spain for a one-year period.

So Spain has form and is certainly open to making mobility deals with non-EU countries.

READ ALSO: Which countries does Spain have working holiday visa agreements with?

Equally, the UK already has similar arrangements with 13 non-EU countries, including Canada and New Zealand as well as Japan and Uruguay. However, none with EU member states for now.

But ultimately it may boil down to whether the UK and Spain will set up such a scheme without the go-ahead from the EU.

Member States do have some freedom when it comes to deciding its immigration rules. Portugal until recently was the only EU country that allowed non-EU nationals to move there without a job (the arrival of a new right-wing government has changed this), and Hungary’s leader Viktor Orban has just relaxed entry rules for Russians and Byelorussians, something Brussels is certainly against.

So, it seems that a Spanish-British mobility scheme, in other words a bilateral immigration agreement, in theory could be possible, especially if it’s not in direct conflict with EU law, principles and policies.

Spain receives the most Erasmus students of all EU countries, 143,000 in 2022. (Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP)

According to the EU’s very own immigration page: “The EU and EU countries share competences in this area, but it’s up to each EU country to take the final decision on individual migrant applications. In areas where no EU rules have been adopted, EU countries can also set the conditions on obtaining residence and work permits in their country.”

So, legally speaking, the idea is at least plausible. Where it might actually run into problems is the politics of it all. It’s true that the Starmer government has made a point of ‘resetting’ relations with Europe, but still, years after the referendum and Brexit came into force, the EU may not want to be seen to allow the UK to pick and choose parts of EU membership to benefit from.

Furthermore, a follow-up to the possible Spain-UK youth mobility scheme in The Independent suggests Starmer has already ruled out Sánchez’s suggestion of a tailor-made student exchange deal, quoting a government spokesperson who said “we are not considering a youth mobility scheme”.

READ ALSO: 

It’s also worth noting again that last April the EU offered the UK the possibility of a youth mobility scheme for people aged 18 to 30, so there is political will for it from Brussels and Madrid, whilst UK governments whether Conservative or Labour are more apprehensive.

Whatever the political will in London and Madrid, as Stefanie Schacherer from University of Geneva’s law department writes in Investment Treaty News, the bottom line is that “to open negotiations or sign a BIT (bilateral investment treaty), member states must obtain authorisation from the European Commission.”

For millions of young Brits missing out on the chance to work and study in Europe, and tens of thousands of Spaniards who have it harder to spend time in the UK improving their English, the hope will be the new Labour government can thaw UK-EU relations enough for the European Commission to allow Spain to enter into some sort of bilateral mobility scheme for students and young people. 

Or who knows, perhaps Starmer’s Labour will backtrack on their previous pledge (it wouldn’t be the first time) and accept the European Commission’s bloc-wide mobility offer. The offer is still reportedly on the table.

According to academic think tank UK in a changing Europe, the proposed EU-UK youth mobility scheme cannot be considered to be free movement “because it only allows individuals to come for a limited period and does not allow them to settle in the UK or EU member state”.

READ ALSO: BREXIT: Can Spain legally offer more than 90 days to Britons?

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GIBRALTAR

Why has Gibraltar still not reached a Brexit deal with Spain?

With yet another round of Spain-UK negotiations set to begin more than eight years since the Brexit referendum, Gibraltar is still without a deal and a November deadline looms over any treaty. Why has it proven so hard to break the deadlock?

Published: 17 September 2024 13:38 CEST
Why has Gibraltar still not reached a Brexit deal with Spain?

On Thursday September 19th, Spain and the UK resume talks on Gibraltar’s post-Brexit status, and has been the case since 2016, uncertainty is still the prevailing feeling.

The British Foreign Secretary David Lammy recently received his Spanish counterpart, José Manuel Albares in London. Both did their diplomatic duties and talked up the prospects of a deal, with Lammy stating he hoped for an agreement that would ensure greater “prosperity and security for the people of Gibraltar.”

Albares, for his part, understandably centred any hypothetical deal on a “shared prosperity between Gibraltar and the 300,000 Andalusians connected every day in their normal lives”.

READ ALSO: Gibraltar demands Spain return stolen concrete block in new diplomatic spat

Though Lammy and Albares discussed the Rock, no formal negotiations or deal can be struck without EU oversight, so the meeting also included discussion of bilateral issues and international concerns such as the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.

The meeting between the two Ministers was therefore a preamble to yet more formal treaty negotiations in Brussels on Thursday. Since Brexit came into effect at the end of 2020, Gibraltar has essentially existed in legal limbo with no formal treaty.

Border controls have been fudged ever since, leaving locals and Spaniards across the border faced with inconsistent rules and forcing travellers to find creative ways to bypass rules and get over ‘La Línea’. 

Why hasn’t a deal been reached?

So why all the meetings and pre-meetings and endless rounds of negotiations? How is it possible that Gibraltar is still without a Brexit deal all these years later?

A recent piece in El País by Rafa de Miguel, the daily’s UK and Ireland correspondent, perhaps put it best: “The amount of warm words in any political statement is inversely proportional to the progress in the negotiations.”

The reality is that, however many handshakes and photo opportunities and positive attitudes expressed between Spain and the UK on a bilateral level, these are ultimately irrelevant as nothing can be signed without the EU’s approval. 

This is further complicated by the fact that this makes any deal dependent on four way negotiations between Spain, the UK, the EU, and Gibraltar.

Each of these parties has their own individual set of needs, preferences and motivations. The EU won’t want to be seen to give Gibraltar, and by extension the UK, any special treatment for fear of emboldening other member states who desire bespoke arrangements when it comes to border controls and customs checks.

In light of Germany recently reimplementing land border checks, something some say is a direct violation of Schengen rules, this will be especially sensitive in these latest rounds of negotiations. 

Spain has long made territorial claims on Gibraltar dating back to the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, when the overseas territory was first ceded to the UK, and will want to come out of negotiations with something that can be perceived as a political victory, likely an increased Spanish role in border patrols.

Fabian Picardo, Gibraltar’s Chief Minister, has ruled this out definitively over the last few years, citing concerns about British sovereignty.

The UK government in London will also have worries about British sovereignty, but will balance this with the knowledge that Gibraltar negotiations are also an opportunity to reset relations with Europe more widely, something the new Starmer government has repeatedly stated since coming into power.

READ ALSO: ‘It’s time to reset Britain’s relations with Europe’, says UK foreign secretary

Some reports, however, suggest that despite the positive musings coming from London, negotiations have stalled and that Lammy has no intention of signing anything that would deviate from Gibraltar’s needs and concerns.

Political tensions were increased recently when Gibraltar demanded Spanish far-right party Vox return a concrete block stolen from British waters, and the Euro 2024 winning Spanish football team made international headlines when it celebrating by singing ‘Gibraltar es Español’ (Gibraltar is Spanish).

READ ALSO: ‘Gibraltar is Spanish!’: How Spain celebrated Euro 2024 heroes

Despite wanting to improve relations with the EU, Lammy is expected to reiterate the Labour government’s unwavering commitment to the “double lock” on sovereignty, sources told El País.

Perhaps most pressingly, however, is the fact that these new negotiations now have a deadline: the enforcement of new Schengen Area border rules come into force on November 10th and a treaty must be finalised before then. 

READ MORE: Hard border? What we know so far about new Gibraltar-Spain checks

Schengen Zone rules mean that there are two major outstanding points in treaty negotiations: firstly, the sore point of Spanish border guards on British soil, something Gibraltar rejects outright, and also the question of who would run Gibraltar’s airport, which is located on the isthmus between Spain and the British territory, an area Madrid claims was never included in Treaty of Utrecht.

The most contested aspect of negotiations is Madrid’s demand that Spanish agents should be allowed to carry out checks on passengers arriving at Gibraltar airport and that they should be armed and in uniform.

For many Llanitos (Gibraltar locals) this is an intolerable idea and one Picardo rejects outright: “There will be no Spanish boots on the ground,” he has said repeatedly.

On the other hand, Spain argues that no specific protocol can be designed for Gibraltar and that if it wants to join the border-free European area, it must accept Schengen rules.

Spanish boots on British soil is a particularly visceral point for many Gibraltarians of a certain age. In June 1969, Spanish dictator Francisco Franco closed the border gate between Gibraltar and La Línea de la Concepción, cutting the tiny overseas territory off from the world, separating Spanish-British families and forcing Gibraltar to source food from elsewhere on the planet. 

It was eventually reopened in December in 1982 but those 13 years have taken deep root in Gibraltar’s historical memory and is now embedded into the Llanito collective imagination and identity.

For many on ‘The Rock’, the idea of Spanish border guards on British soil, whether it be in the airport or elsewhere, is simply unacceptable under any circumstances. 

Tax could also prove to be a sticking point. Gibraltar has no VAT, but Madrid has argued that if it wants to benefit from fluid border movement, its tax rules must be brought into line with EU rules.

Of course, there’s also both the domestic and international geopolitical contexts to consider here too. All parties – Spain, the UK, Gibraltar and the EU – have been distracted by other events in recent years.

Spain has been preoccupied by political tension, snap elections and the Catalan amnesty, while Britain suffered the almost cartoonish political instability of the outgoing Conservative government and treaty talks were postponed after the general election in July.

Added to this is the fact that the mediating party, the EU, has had its hands full with the war in Ukraine and surging far-right parties across member states, a trend that interestingly both the UK and Spain buck as the only major European states with centre-left governments.

Talks resume on Thursday September 19th, over 8 years since the Brexit referendum.

In British politics, the UK’s exit from the EU now seems strangely absent from debate, as though the issue is over and the country has finally begun to move on — but for Gibraltarians and the thousands of Spaniards who cross the border and work there everyday, Brexit is still an open-ended question.

READ ALSO: ‘Starting now’: New UK govt wastes no time in Gibraltar post-Brexit talks with Spain

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