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The Sunday Times reported that the UK is “ready to let in 80,000 young Europeans a year". Our quick take is that the proposed 'youth mobility scheme' is yet another area where the UK is at risk of signing a deal which overwhelmingly favours the EU.
There is nothing intrinsically wrong with another evenly-balanced 'youth mobility scheme' - the UK already has one with several non-EU countries, including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Korea.
But any UK-EU scheme risks being fundamentally imbalanced. For a start, the number of young EU people coming to work or study in the UK is likely to far exceed the number of young UK people heading in the other direction, as it did before Brexit. And this is at a time when UK youth unemployment is already a major problem.
In principle, this imbalance could be minimised by setting a low cap on the numbers. But note that this would no longer be possible if the UK were to rejoin the EU, or even just restored 'freedom of movement'. In principle, this imbalance could be minimised by setting a low cap on the numbers.
But note that this would no longer be possible if the UK were to rejoin the EU, or even just restored 'freedom of movement'.
The EU is also insisting on a higher cap of 100,000 - twice the UK's original proposal of 50,000 (as well as more favourable terms on fees for EU students, at a time when UK university finances are already in crisis).
To be clear, an increase in net immigration does not necessarily lead to an increase in local unemployment. That’s what economists describe as the 'lump of labour' fallacy, which assumes that there is only a fixed number of jobs to go around. But in this case, it probably would, both because the UK economy is not being held back by labour shortages, and because many migrants will be willing to accept lower wages.
Moreover, there is another fundamental imbalance: the EU does not actually have the legal power to compel individual member states to allow 'third country nationals' to work in their country. This is why the UK has tried to agree bilateral schemes with several EU member states, notably France, Germany and Spain, before these were put on hold by pressure from the European Commission.
The upshot is that any UK-EU youth mobility scheme is likely to be on terms which are far more favourable to the EU. Indeed, it is telling that the EU is insisting on a much higher cap as a pre-condition before discussing other aspects of the so-called 'reset'!
