According to the Guardian, EU citizens wishing to leave the UK can get an “incentive” from the island government. The rule went into effect on January 1, but the British government didn’t shut it down to the big drum. There was a similar initiative before, except that the beneficiaries were not EU citizens. For the current program known as “voluntary return”, the British government website Free air tickets and up to £2,000 (812,000 HUF) in cash can be given to migrants who wish to leave the country voluntarily.
The timing is also interesting, as it was only a few months before the end of the resettlement program for citizens of the European Economic Area (EU, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein). If nationals of those countries lived in the UK before December 31, they had the opportunity to obtain a residence permit until June 30 this year. to apply is being. It is strange, then, that a program to encourage them to leave begins a few months before this is completed.
The question arises as to whether the citizens of the European Union or the European Economic Area have become unwelcome to the United Kingdom. The voluntary return program has so far sought to return unskilled, and often displaced, migrants from the Third World, primarily to reduce the financial and time required for the return process. The current move is particularly interesting in light of the fact that the British government has previously said it will do everything in its power to keep EU citizens in place. According to Benjamin Morgan, an expert on the rights of EU citizens living in the UK, this is a message with at least two sides, as it encourages those involved not to stay but to leave the island country.
Do they cut down the tree from under you?
The situation is further complicated by the fact that a large proportion of EU citizens who are entitled to settle in principle are unaware of the fast approach to application deadlines, otherwise their stay in the UK may be called into question and even threatened with deportation. The whole situation is almost tragic, with many EU citizens in particular working in the already overburdened British public health system, and it will be very important for them to stay in an island nation hit hard by the Covid pandemic.
The JCWI (Joint Commission on Immigrant Welfare), which deals with immigrants’ rights, has also called for the deadline for EU/EAA nationals to apply for incorporation to be abolished. According to a study by the organisation, a third of EU citizens working in healthcare were unaware that there was a deadline for submitting an incorporation application, and even less that this deadline was about to expire. In addition, some people working in this sector do not have a highly skilled workforce, and many work as caregivers and helpers, for example, but their work will be very important. I mean, if they knew the right to a settlement in principle and how to apply for it.
It’s not just EU citizens living in the UK who are worried about the tangle of travel, accommodation and other regulations that come with Brexit: Elton John, for example, recently expressed concern about British musicians’ future tours in the EU, in open letter. Of course, the above is just one of the hardships associated with Brexit at sea, but given the large number of Hungarian nationals working and studying in the UK, it deserves attention.
(Cover Photo: Toby Melville/Reuters)
