British in Europe attends the Specialised Committee on Citizens' Rights

On 14 November British in Europe Chair, Jane Golding and Director, Fiona Godfrey, attended the Specialised Committee on Citizens’ Rights hosted at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) in London. We attended with two colleagues from the3million to update the UK, European Commission and 27 EU member states on implementation of the citizens’ rights part of the Withdrawal Agreement (WA) in the EU and UK.

After consultation with BIE’s country group leaders, BIE presented on issues and concerns around:

• Upgrading from ordinary residence to permanent residence in the EU

• Late applications and refusals

• Equal treatment in relation to access to healthcare and property

• Family reunification

• The proposed EU Entry Exit System (EES) and the European Travel Information Authorisation System (ETIAS)

• Multiple statuses and;

• Young people

We asked the European Commission to look into our concerns, raise them with the relevant member states and update us on progress made in resolving these issues.

We also updated participants on progress made in our EU funded-project, (ICE) and called on the UK government to provide funding to support its WA beneficiary citizens to access their rights under the WA.

Finally, in response to comments made at the start of the meeting by both UK and EU representatives on the importance of the reset in the EU-UK relationship, BIE pointed out that any reset must start with full implementation of the citizens’ rights part of the WA for both UK citizens in the EU and EU citizens in the UK. Without this, it will be meaningless.