ARCHIVED - A chance for Bremainers to fight for individual EU citizenship?

UK nationals opposed to Brexit believe they could apply for individual associate EU citizenship

The UK has now left the European Union and the two sides have the remainder of 2020 to negotiate their future relationship, but a considerable number of British people, living both in the UK and abroad, regret losing their status as EU citizens.

Unlikely as it may seem, though, there is still hope that they might be able to retain EU citizenship, and a group called Stay European has launched a campaign which they hope will result in UK nationals being able to apply for “”associate EU citizenship”. So far over 115,000 people have signed up, and the promise is that “once the campaign is large enough to gain wider attention, we will lobby the EU to create a formal scheme that we can sign up to”.

What the organizers believe is that millions of Britons are losing EU citizenship even though they did not choose to renounce it - many of them, after all, were denied a vote in the 2016 referendum, while others voted against – and that they should be given the right to opt in and continue to identify as Europeans by obtaining individual citizenship.

How this would work is not clear but it has been suggested that such a scheme could be tied to a fee, as an individual contribution to the EU budget, perhaps equivalent to what we currently pay in per person.

Stay European stress that what they are organizing is not simply a petition: it is about building a continuing group of people who want to apply for associate citizenship, and then pushing at EU level for the creation of a scheme for them to do so.

There may even be significant support for the idea in Brussels: Guy Verhofstadt, MEP and Brexit coordinator for the European Parliament, has been suggesting the idea at EU level since 2016 and as recently as December 2019 said it's time to "come back to the idea of 'European associated citizenship' for UK citizens who want to keep their link with Europe".

The UK government is unlikely to support such a scheme, but in principle it is possible for the EU to offer associate citizenship directly, and Stay European believe the transition period can be a chance to push for them to do so.

THE AIM IS FOR THE OPTION TO BE MADE AVAILABLE TO ALL UK CITIZENS, WHEREVER THEY RESIDE.

Whether this is a realistic aim cannot be evaluated; no country has ever left the EU before and there is no precedent.

Feel free to register your support at www.stayeuropean.org, and to offer your services as a volunteer if you feel strongly enough about the issue.

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