Plans to allow the United Kingdom an
exemption from EU rules on freedom of
movement for up to seven years while retaining
access to the single market are being considered
in European capitals as part of a potential deal
on Brexit.

Senior British and EU sources have confirmed
that despite strong initial resistance from
French president François Hollande in talks
with prime minister Theresa May last week, the
idea of an emergency brake on the free
movement of people that would go far further
than the one David Cameron negotiated before
the Brexit referendum is being examined.

If such an agreement were struck, and a strict
time limit imposed, diplomats believe it could
go a long way towards addressing concerns of
the British people over immigration from EU
states, while allowing the UK full trade access to
the European market.

While the plan will prove highly controversial
in many member states, including France,
Poland and other central and eastern European
nations, the attraction is that it would limit the
economic shock to the EU economy from Brexit
by keeping the UK in the single market, and
lessen the political damage to the European
project that would result from complete
divorce.

High-ranking UK officials said that while it was
“very early days”, some form of extended
emergency brake was “certainly one of the
ideas now on the table”.

Any such agreement would, however, mean the
UK would still have to pay a substantial
contribution into the EU budget, although
probably at a lower rate, and would lose its seat
at the negotiating table when rules on the single
market were determined, because it would not
be a full member of the union.

During the referendum campaign, the leave
camp, led by Boris Johnson, now the foreign
secretary, and Michael Gove, suggested that the
UK would save £350m a week in EU
contributions as a result of leaving both the EU
and the single market. They said the money
could be spent on the National Health Service.
But on a visit to the United Nations in New York
this weekend, Johnson appeared to change his
tune, suggesting he now believed a deal could
be struck that would allow the UK access to the
single market with new limits on free
movement rules for European workers.

“I’ve absolutely no doubt that that balance can
be struck, and over the next few weeks we’ll be
discussing that in the government and with our
European friends and partners,” Johnson said.
“Everybody wishes to make fast progress in the
economic interests both of Britain and of the
European Union . I think there is very much a
deal there to be done, and the faster we can get
it done the better.”


If the rights of EU citizens now in the
UK can be guaranteed, then I think
we can look at some form of
emergency brake
Dutch MEP Hans van Baalen


EU diplomats and advisers believe the EU
should try to keep the UK in the single market if
possible, while not giving it such a good deal
that other member states would be tempted to
follow it out of the club.

Speaking in her capacity as deputy director of
the Rome-based Institute for International
Affairs, Nathalie Tocci, who is a special adviser
to Federica Mogherini, the EU high
representative for foreign and security policy,
said she believed that the Italian government
would back an emergency brake as a way to
keep the UK in the single market.

She added that it would have to be time limited,
in order not to violate EU treaties. “But I see no
reason why it could not last, say, between seven
and 10 years. This was how long temporary
derogations lasted after the 2004 enlargement,
which the UK chose not to benefit from,” she
said.

The Dutch MEP Hans van Baalen, who is
president of the Liberal group in the European
parliament and a member of the same party as
Dutch prime minster Mark Rutte, said the plan
should be taken forward, but would require the
UK to give firm assurances about the right of EU
citizens currently living and working in Britain
to remain in the country.

“If the rights of EU citizens now living the UK
can be guaranteed permanently by the UK
government, then I think we can look at some
form of emergency brake on free movement of
labour,” he said. “This could be invoked when
the British labour market is under particular
pressure. I would try to limit it to the UK at this
stage.

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“It is difficult to talk in too much detail as this
will take a long time to negotiate. But given the
difficulties we face, we must try to be flexible. It
is vital that we have the UK in the single market
as much as possible for the UK economy and for
the economies of all EU member states.”

In his attempt to renegotiate the terms of the
UK’s EU membership before the referendum,
Cameron secured a limited emergency brake
that would have enabled Britain to restrict and
phase in EU migrants’ access to in-work
benefits for the four years after they first
arrived in this country.

The UK would be able to apply the “brake” for
an initial seven years. But after the Brexit vote
the EU declared the deal null and void.

Under current European Economic Area rules
(which cover EU member states as well as non-
EU members like Norway, which has full access
to the single market) there is already an option
to apply “safeguard measures” in the event of
“serious economic, societal or environmental
difficulties of a sectorial or regional nature
liable to persist”.

This would allow Norway to impose restrictions
on free movement but it has never invoked the
clause, because, diplomats say, it is wary of
reprisals from EU member states.


https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/24/brexit-deal-free-movement-exemption-seven-years