UK starts program to register EU citizens

A lone demonstrator stands by an entrance to Britain’s parliament in London on Jan. 18, 2019.  AP

LONDON  — Britain is rolling out a program to help register an estimated 3.5 million European Union citizens living in the United Kingdom as it begins the process of leaving the bloc.

Under a plan that enters the test phase on Monday, EU nationals who want to stay must apply for settled status, and pay a charge of 65 pounds ($83) for adults and 32.50 pounds for children.

Immigration Minister Caroline Nokes says the authorities will “deliver a system that will make it easy and straightforward for EU citizens to obtain status.”

But trust in the authorities is low, in part because of the recent Windrush scandal in which long-term U.K. residents from the Caribbean were deported or detained because they could not produce documents to prove their right to live in the country.

The governments of Spain and the United Kingdom have signed an agreement to safeguard voting rights in local elections for their citizens residing in the other country regardless of the way Brexit unfolds.

Britain’s Brexit minister, Robin Walker, says the agreement is the first of its kind for Britain with a member of the European Union.

Walker was in Madrid for the signing on Monday.

Some 300,000 British citizens living in Spain, the largest community outside of the British Isles, and 175,000 Spaniards who are residents in Britain and Northern Ireland will be able to vote and run in local elections that both countries are due to hold in May, officials have said.

Spain’s state secretary for EU affairs, Marco Aguiriano, says the agreement will enter force with Britain’s departure from the EU, whether at the end of March as initially planned or later and with or without an agreement between the two sides.

European Union nations are vowing not to reopen the draft agreement on Britain’s withdrawal from the bloc as they await details of British Prime Minister Theresa May’s plan to break the Brexit deadlock.

EU foreign ministers arriving for a regular monthly meeting Monday also insisted they would need a very convincing reason to extend the March 29 departure date.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas shared the frustration with the British indecision on how to leave the bloc and said that “we now know what they don’t want in London. Now, we finally need to know what it does want.”

Several ministers said a reopening of the draft withdrawal agreement was out of the question. Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl said “this is the text we all invested ourselves in.” /ee