♠ Posted by Emmanuel in
Europe,
Migration
at 6/05/2016 03:37:00 PM
 |
| Unfortunately for UK expats in the EU, they don't have much say in a process affecting them greatly. |
There's an interesting
article in
The Economist on how the upcoming UK referendum on whether to remain or leave the EU is revealing how the country treats its expatriates. Famously a widely-traveling people, it turns out that the home nation does not have particularly high regard of its citizens living abroad. The evidence is from not giving expatriates a clear and well-organized way to cast their votes. This matters especially to expatriates working in other EU countries since, if the referendum results in leaving the grouping, there is no guarantee that they can work on anywhere near similar terms since the "Leave" camp is fervently isolationist towards everyone else--especially other Europeans. Why would the EU not return the favor?
That means protections for expats need to be secured as part of
Britain’s exit negotiations. But will they be? If the country sought an
arrangement similar to Norway’s, whereby it kept the trade benefits of
EU membership in exchange for preserving freedom of movement, this might
well be possible. But the Leave campaign is increasingly defining a
pro-Brexit vote on June 23rd as a mandate for a draconian clamp-down: on
June 1st Vote Leave, the official Out campaign, proposed slamming the
door on all EU citizens except those with particular skills. If this
happened, reciprocal restrictions would presumably apply to Britons
planning to move to the continent. How it would affect those who have
already done so is unclear. In the event of Brexit, European leaders are
likely to try to discourage copycats by pointedly restricting the full
benefits of EU citizenship to full EU citizens.
In an age when diaspora communities are regarded as resources--bringing knowledge and skills back to the home nation or sending remittances from abroad--the UK is curiously of the "out of sight, out of mind" disposition towards its own:
All this is part of a wider story: Britain tends to disregard its
diaspora. The country limits its expats’ voting rights (which are
withdrawn after 15 years abroad) and certain welfare payments. It
freezes their pensions and makes relatively little effort to find out
where they are, what they are doing or even how many of them exist.
And
this in a technological age when other governments are going to new
lengths to engage their emigrants. Ireland is building a giant database
of its diaspora, to help nurture and woo it; New Zealand runs a social
network for far-flung Kiwis. Mexico, India and China see their emigrants
as soft-power warriors and try to lure high-flyers, with their
international experience and connections, back home. France and Italy
both have overseas parliamentary constituencies and let their expats
vote in embassies...
Yet
why should such Britons, many of whom have paid into the welfare state
for decades before moving abroad, be treated as second-class citizens.
There are many "
known unknowns" in Rumsfeld-speak for the UK itself if it leaves the EU; what more for those actually plying their trade on the continent?
