UK-EU youth mobility scheme key to better EU relations, says top diplomat
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Germany’s ambassador to UK suggests Starmer will have to agree to concessions like youth mobility in order to secure economic benefits. Keir Starmer’s efforts to reset Britain’s relations with its European allies is contingent upon a UK-EU youth mobility scheme, a top diplomat has indicated.
Miguel Berger, Germany’s ambassador to the UK, said stability across Europe could be undermined if the allies could not secure a number of “clear measures” that demonstrate the “concrete advantages” of their relationship – one being the youth mobility scheme.
While Berger appeared to accept the pressure Starmer was under from Eurosceptics and Brexit supporting newspapers in the UK, he said the scheme was ultimately “quite simple”. “The most important thing is [that] people who come here will go home after that. So the idea is really to have the experience, but then go home,” he told the Guardian.
“It should be quite simple. But there are visible attempts to portray this as migration, or to portray it as freedom of movement.”. A poll conducted by YouGov for the European Council on Foreign Relations found almost seven in 10 Britons, including a 55% majority of former pro-Brexit voters, would support a scheme that would allow 200,000 18- to 40-year-olds from the UK and the EU to travel, study and work freely in each other’s countries for up to four years.
When asked if the prime minister’s willingness to join the youth mobility scheme would mark a successful reset for him in showing how far he would go to improve cooperation, Berger said: “I think it is an important element. Another one is the Erasmus scheme. All of that, at least for us, is really, really important.”.
