Brussels is taking the UK to the EU Court of Justice for allegedly failing to comply with free movement laws post-Brexit in the first major blowup between the two sides since Labour came to power.
The European Commission said it believed that there had been ‘several shortcomings’ in Britain’s implementation of treaties at the end of 2020, with the allegations centering on Britain’s failure to comply with EU laws on the free movement of people.
The UK left the bloc in early 2020 but in the Brexit deal agreed to continue to allow European nationals and their families already residing in Britain to remain living there.
In a statement, the Commission said: ‘The European Commission decided to refer the United Kingdom to the Court of Justice of the European Union… for failure to comply with EU law on free movement of EU citizens and their family members at the end of 2020.
‘After carefully assessing the replies of the United Kingdom, the Commission maintains that several elements of the grievances remain unaddressed, including on the rights of workers and the rights of extended family members,’ it added.
The legal action comes as the Labour government elected this year has sought to ‘reset’ relations with Brussels after years of post-Brexit rancour under previous Conservative administrations.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer held talks with commission chief Ursula von der Leyen in Brussels in October, and this month finance minister Rachel Reeves became the first British chancellor since Brexit to attend a meeting of eurozone counterparts.
The case was initiated in May 2020, when the EU sent a letter of formal notice to Britain complaining that national legislation limited the scope of beneficiaries of EU free movement law.
The UK left the bloc in early 2020 but in the Brexit deal agreed to continue to allow European nationals and their families already residing in Britain to remain living there. Pictured: Queues at the Port of Dover
A queue for trucks on the German-Polish border
Officers detain a man on the German/French border in Kehl, western Germany
A German police officer with guard dog at a border with France, as all German land borders are subject to random controls
The infringement decision issued by the Commission stated that the UK has breached the free movement directive as well as three articles of the EU’s treaties by failing to ‘comply with EU law on the free movement of EU citizens and their family members’.
It added: ‘EU law on free movement of persons continues to apply to and in the United Kingdom as if it were still an EU member state during the transition period.
‘Furthermore, the rights of EU citizens resident in the UK after the end of the transition period, as set out in the Withdrawal Agreement, are built on the rights that they currently enjoy in the United Kingdom under EU rules.
‘The United Kingdom’s shortcomings in the implementation and transposition of EU free movement law risks therefore also affecting the implementation of the citizens’ rights under the Withdrawal Agreement after the end of the transition period.’
In July this year, the EC announced that further steps had been taken due to continued shortcomings in the UK’s implementation of the treaty.
The UK then had two months to respond to the EC’s concerns, with the EC threatening that it would decide to refer the case to the European Court of Justice.
But despite exchanges with London, the commission said that ‘several elements of the grievances remain unaddressed including on the rights of workers and the rights of extended family members’ – warranting legal action.
Britain formally left the EU on January 31, 2020.
But under the ‘Withdrawal Agreement’, EU citizens and their family members who moved to Britain before the end of 2020 were granted broadly the same rights they had before Brexit.