U.K. Is Open to Talking About Associate Citizenship After Brexit

(Bloomberg) -- Brexit Secretary David Davis said he has spoken to the European Parliament’s negotiator Guy Verhofstadt about creating so-called associate citizenship that could allow visa-free working rights to British nationals.

Davis was asked in Parliament about what the government could do to offer British workers, particularly younger Britons, the opportunity to work in the European Union without a visa. He said he’d already discussed the idea with EU counterparts.

“We’ll listen to anything of this nature,” he told lawmakers on Thursday. “The aim of this exercise is to be good for Europe, good for Britain, and that means good for the citizens of Europe and Britain."

Verhofstadt said in April he wanted to allow Britons to retain their European citizenship, and the parliament in Strasbourg has put forward a proposal to allow them to opt in to an associate EU citizenship. 

It’s not clear when such proposals would be formally discussed: talks are currently deadlocked over the contentious issue of the divorce bill. The residency rights of EU citizens in the U.K., and U.K. citizens in Europe need to be sorted before talks can move on to the future relationship.

Negotiations are set to resume next week.

--With assistance from Tim Ross

To contact the reporter on this story: Svenja O'Donnell in London at sodonnell@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Flavia Krause-Jackson at fjackson@bloomberg.net, Emma Ross-Thomas

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