Britons could need a visa costing £52 to enter the EU under draft proposals presented to MEPs as part of the European Commission’s planning for Brexit.
The proposal emerged as the Home Office outlined how millions of EU citizens who wish to stay in the UK after Brexit would pay £65 for “settled status”, with decisions on applications promised within a “matter of days”.
A commission document proposes changes to the EU’s visa policy for third countries — nations not in the EU — to “place the UK on either the visa-required list of third countries or the ‘visa-free’ list”. Martin Selmayr, the most senior civil servant in the European Commission, told MEPs last week that the EU would have to decide whether UK citizens would need visas after Brexit. A Schengen visa for a short stay of less than 90 days costs £52.
In Brussels officials said that it was unlikely that the EU would require Britons to apply for visas, given the desire for close relations after Brexit. Even if they are not required to have visas, Britons are likely to have to pay a €7 travel authorisation fee announced by Brussels in April. Meanwhile the Home Office is to test an online scheme to process applications from EU citizens for settled status this summer. Ministers promise that it will be fully operational by March, when Brexit is due.
Officials are planning for up to 3.8 million applicants, who will be asked to confirm their identity, residence in the country and whether they have a criminal record. Their answers will be checked against government data.
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Officials said that the system was based on the premise that the government wanted EU citizens’ applications for settled status to be approved.
Applications would cost £65 for adults and £32.50 for children, or be free for EU citizens who had already applied for residency or indefinite leave to remain.
A network of contact centres is to be set up to help applicants and an authority created to monitor EU citizens’ rights. Applicants who are refused would be able to reapply at any point, and however many times they wished, up to the end of June 2021.
Under the plans, EU citizens and family members who have been in the UK for five years by the end of 2020 would be able to apply for settled status, meaning that they would be free to go on living and working in Britain indefinitely. Those who were here by December 31, 2020, but did not have five years’ residence could seek to stay until they had, at which point they could seek settled status.
•A British diplomat working for the European Commission has been criticised for attacking Brexiteers on Twitter. Chris Kendall, who formerly worked for the Foreign Office, wrote: “We want you to fail, hard. And if you do somehow pull this off do not expect us to roll over and accept it. We won’t.” Mr Kendall said he tweeted in a personal capacity.
