A row is brewing on the freedom of movement of EU workers after Brexit and during the transition period. The EU Commission guidelines and the EU parliament both make clear there cannot be any diluting of residency rights during the 21 month transition period (HERE). Mrs May has said that EU nationals coming here during the transition period must register and may not have the same rights as those who came before March 2019.
She has tried to give the impression that FoM will end next year and that a future UK immigration policy will not allow the same residence rights for EU citizens.
In this report (HERE) from The Times, David Davis, the Brexit secretary, is suggesting the EU is backtracking on what has already been agreed:
“In the report which we concluded and got agreement on in December, the EU agreed that the end date of ongoing residents’ rights will be March 2019,” he told MPs.
But this is not true. Davis does not seem to understand his own agreement. The Joint Report itself says in several places that it, "does not prejudge any adaptations that might be appropriate in case transitional arrangements were to be agreed in the second phase of the negotiations, and is without prejudice to discussions on the framework of the future relationship". Transitional arrangements are not covered by the Joint Report. The Withdrawal date is not given but is referred to as the "specified" date.
But in the communication appended to it, there is this paragraph:
This ‘specified date’ should be the date of the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the Union, without prejudice to discussions, in the second phase of the negotiations, on a possible transitional period and on appropriate adaptations flowing from it as regards the "specified date". In the Commission’s view, in case of any transitional period implying the continued application of the Union's acquis on the fundamental freedoms, it is clear that citizens would need to be fully entitled to their rights to free movement as before the United Kingdom’s withdrawal, and that, therefore, the provisions of the Withdrawal Agreement on the content of citizens’ rights and on governance as regards those rights can only become applicable at the end of such transitional period. In other words, in such case, the ‘specified date’ should, in the Commission's view, be defined not as the date of the United Kingdom’s withdrawal, but as that of the end of the transitional period.
It is abundantly clear that Davis is wrong - as usual but no MP seemed to pick him up about it.
