Yay! Now I feel prophetic about politics too!!!
While discussing Brexit and concerns over freedom of movement, I suggested that the EU would not kick out UK members... because it would be mind bogglingly idiotic. And guess what? THIS. I also suggested that rather than being to save their own asses, that they would present it as a kindness. And guess what, it basically acts like this is a great idea to address the concerns of UK citizens who voted to leave.
Let's be clear. There are two reasons for this move, and neither have a damn thing to do with appeasing UK citizens. The first is, citizens currently living, and most importantly WORKING AND PAYING TAXES in the EU could devastate the economy if they were kicked out. And secondly, the EU, like any developed area in the world likes immigrants because they can move to your country and... wait for it... work and pay taxes.
The UK is well educated, doesn't export a lot of terrorists, and UK residents have been flowing freely into the EU for decades now. There is no reason to stop it. Of course, they really can't keep it going indefinitely once the UK is out... but heck get all you can now.
I expect a similar move to be made in the UK. Though, the UK may need to compromise and only offer it to EU citizens that are currently residents of the UK. Which in the end will hurt their economy. But, they may also shun the bigots who drove the referendum and do something more inline with what the EU did. Don't know exactly what will happen there aside from the fact that it is also unlikely that they will kick other EU citizens out.
But please... lets not pretend for one second that this move on the part of the EU was unexpected or an attempt at generosity. It aims to maintain as much stability as possible in the economy and potentially lure other UK citizens into the EU.
That, I suppose, doesn't change the fact that it is certainly good for the people who get to take advantage of it. I don't want to dismiss the fact that good things can happen for self serving reasons. I just want to highlight why this decision was so predictable.
The EU has even done a good job of diverting public attention away from the real reason by focusing on the "48% of Britons who voted to stay" implying the kindness is aimed at a bunch of people all currently living in the UK. So I'll forgive those who don't see the correlation. But those UK citizens living elsewhere in the EU are still UK citizens, and thus, this offer will apply to them as well. They may make up only a small chunk of those who will likely take them up on this, but they are the most important people for the EU to "keep".
[update]
Reading through some Twitter comments it seems that a lot of people think that this amounts to the EU "going easy" on the UK and incentivizing other countries to leave.
While I think economic stability trumps those concerns and I could be wrong about the following... I don't think it does either of those things.
Firstly... while it was unlikely to have ever happened, if the EU kicked out UK citizens after they formally exit, repatriating a ton of UK citizens would not only hurt the EU, it would help the UK. The UK would get a massive one time boost of people all over the spectrum, which would include business people, skilled laborers and more.
Also, at best, the UK can offer the same. At worst they kick other EU citizens out, but most likely, given the public pressure to take control of immigration, they simply allow current residents to maintain citizenship. The end result will likely be a net gain for the EU and the net loss for the UK.
In fact, the only way I see the EU losing out, is if it refuses citizenship to anyone. The offer instead says (to me at least)... "go ahead and leave the EU, we'll keep who we already have, and entice the others with free citizenship".
Given the above, I don't see why other EU members would be incentivized by this act. And I don't think any of them are dumb enough not to see it for what it is.
[/update]
Let's be clear. There are two reasons for this move, and neither have a damn thing to do with appeasing UK citizens. The first is, citizens currently living, and most importantly WORKING AND PAYING TAXES in the EU could devastate the economy if they were kicked out. And secondly, the EU, like any developed area in the world likes immigrants because they can move to your country and... wait for it... work and pay taxes.
The UK is well educated, doesn't export a lot of terrorists, and UK residents have been flowing freely into the EU for decades now. There is no reason to stop it. Of course, they really can't keep it going indefinitely once the UK is out... but heck get all you can now.
I expect a similar move to be made in the UK. Though, the UK may need to compromise and only offer it to EU citizens that are currently residents of the UK. Which in the end will hurt their economy. But, they may also shun the bigots who drove the referendum and do something more inline with what the EU did. Don't know exactly what will happen there aside from the fact that it is also unlikely that they will kick other EU citizens out.
But please... lets not pretend for one second that this move on the part of the EU was unexpected or an attempt at generosity. It aims to maintain as much stability as possible in the economy and potentially lure other UK citizens into the EU.
That, I suppose, doesn't change the fact that it is certainly good for the people who get to take advantage of it. I don't want to dismiss the fact that good things can happen for self serving reasons. I just want to highlight why this decision was so predictable.
The EU has even done a good job of diverting public attention away from the real reason by focusing on the "48% of Britons who voted to stay" implying the kindness is aimed at a bunch of people all currently living in the UK. So I'll forgive those who don't see the correlation. But those UK citizens living elsewhere in the EU are still UK citizens, and thus, this offer will apply to them as well. They may make up only a small chunk of those who will likely take them up on this, but they are the most important people for the EU to "keep".
[update]
Reading through some Twitter comments it seems that a lot of people think that this amounts to the EU "going easy" on the UK and incentivizing other countries to leave.
While I think economic stability trumps those concerns and I could be wrong about the following... I don't think it does either of those things.
Firstly... while it was unlikely to have ever happened, if the EU kicked out UK citizens after they formally exit, repatriating a ton of UK citizens would not only hurt the EU, it would help the UK. The UK would get a massive one time boost of people all over the spectrum, which would include business people, skilled laborers and more.
Also, at best, the UK can offer the same. At worst they kick other EU citizens out, but most likely, given the public pressure to take control of immigration, they simply allow current residents to maintain citizenship. The end result will likely be a net gain for the EU and the net loss for the UK.
In fact, the only way I see the EU losing out, is if it refuses citizenship to anyone. The offer instead says (to me at least)... "go ahead and leave the EU, we'll keep who we already have, and entice the others with free citizenship".
Given the above, I don't see why other EU members would be incentivized by this act. And I don't think any of them are dumb enough not to see it for what it is.
[/update]
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