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It is written into the law of the UK that the Member State will exit the European Union at 11pm on 29 March 2019. This has caused a multitude of uncertainty for workers of both UK nationality and EU nationality, as the fate of their residency status is speculated about.
Progress has been made in this area. The 27 leaders of the other EU Member States have recently approved the draft Withdrawal Agreement, negotiated by Theresa May’s Government, and taken another step closer to knowing for definite what will happen when the UK leaves. That being said, the Agreement still must survive a trip through the UK Parliament, where it must be approved by the majority in order for it to remain in place.
Despite this, we do have a rather firm grasp on the implications for EU national workers, having reviewed both the Withdrawal Agreement approved by the EU-27 and the Statement of Intent made by the Home Office. The position appears to be the same regardless of whether Parliament approves the Agreement or not.
There will be an Implementation Period following the UK’s exit from the EU, running from 30 March 2019 – 31 December 2020. During this period there will be little change to the rights and treatment of EU nationals living in the UK. What is important, however, is what happens after the Implementation Period.
EU nationals hoping to remain in the UK, enjoying all the rights they do currently, must apply for and secure ‘settled status.’ EU citizens with settled status (and their family members) will have the same access as they currently do to healthcare, pensions and other benefits in the UK. In order to secure settled status, the EU national in question must have been continuously resident in the UK for five years.
‘Continuously resident’ in this context means that the individual in question has not been absent from the UK for more than six months in total in any twelve-month period. These absences are considered on a rolling basis, as oppose to separate twelve-month periods.