British in Europe launches training project about EU fundamental rights
British in Europe, the organisation set up after Brexit to defend the rights of British citizens living in the EU, has launched a training programme for their volunteers about EU fundamental rights.
The project aims to ensure that people understand the links between the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and the EU-UK withdrawal agreement in order to protect beneficiaries and reinforce the group’s advocacy skills.
Effective since 2009, the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights enshrines into EU law the political, social and economic rights that all EU citizens and residents have. These range from the rights to free movement and non-discrimination, to the respect for private and family life, the rights of the child, the rights of the elderly, and the right to health care.
When EU countries apply the citizens’ rights provisions of the withdrawal agreement, the EU Charter also applies, British in Europe argues.
Co-chair Jane Golding said: “We want to share the information about the lived experience of the withdrawal agreement beneficiaries with a wider group of people, not just the participants in our project. It is important that we raise awareness about the links between the Charter and the withdrawal agreement, so that our volunteers can distribute it in their respective networks and support the UK citizens who approach them for help. Some volunteers have quite a lot of knowledge in this field, but the link with the EU Charter is probably the newer area.”
The programme is part of the British in Europe project ‘Inform, Connect, Empower: Capacity Building for Charter Agents of Change (ICE)’, which is funded by the European Commission. The project investigates the implementation of the Charter through the application of the withdrawal agreement to over 1.2 million UK citizens living in the EU.
Started in May 2024, the project will last 20 months and involve volunteers from 11 European countries. In this context, British in Europe held a training course on 21-23 October in Berlin.
Experiences shared by participants about the application of the withdrawal agreement showed that in practice, there can be gaps and inconsistencies in the way rights are understood and applied across European countries. This has sometimes led to a “monetary cost, as people had to pay excessive amounts in terms of lawyers fees”, but also a “personal and emotional cost”.
In Denmark, it was noted, many UK citizens did not receive from the national immigration agency adequate information on what to do to secure their post-Brexit rights. As a result, many missed the 2021 deadline to apply for new residence documents and received removal orders. The Danish government later extended the deadline to the end of 2023.
Another case discussed at the meeting concerned Sweden, the country issuing the highest number of expulsion notices to Britons in the EU.
British in Europe recently run a survey on the implementation of the withdrawal agreement. Jane Golding told Europe Street the provisional results shows many open issues. “A big theme coming out at the moment is the upgrade to permanent residence and what is being required in different countries. Another issue is access to health care and generally social security coordination, where we are seeing quite a few cases coming up,” she said.
“It is important to remember that some things are still happening to us. Things have not changed that much [since Brexit]. We are still living that tragedy, so we should not speak in the past tense,” said one of the participants in the meeting.
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