Both Liberal Democrat leader, Ed Davey, and Foreign Affairs Spokesperson, Layla Moran, have welcomed the European Union’s proposals for a Youth Mobility scheme, published on Friday. Ed, in a post on Twitter/X called the scheme a “win-win-win” as it would help boost the UK’s economy, offer great opportunities for young people to live and work abroad, as well as start to fix the broken relationship with Europe. Layla was equally enthusiastic, pointing out in a post that “young people deserve the same opportunities so many of us benefitted from at the beginning of our adult lives”.

Disappointingly, the Tory government has already rejected the offer and Downing Street has said that it prefers country-to-country deals. However, as as Robert Harrison, Chair of the Liberal Democrat European Group, pointed out, such deals take a long time to negotiate. “It would be better if a single deal covered all member states of the European Union, rather than individual agreements with different provisions. That would be otherwise a nightmare,” he added.

The European Commission has said that it was stepping in to ensure that there was no “differential treatment” of EU citizens and highlighted that there should be a bloc-wide deal to ensure that all EU citizens are treated equally.

Labour are equally unwilling to back the scheme, telling the Financial Times that “Labour has no plans for a youth mobility scheme.”

The Liberal Democrats are the only party with a clear plan to rebuild relationships with the European Union, our closest neighbour and largest trading partner. We see youth mobility as one step in this rebuilding process and will continue to propose measures to simplify trade and travel.

Photo by Eliott Reyna on Unsplash

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