Britain’s most senior foreign minister, Yvette Cooper, on Wednesday backed a hard cap on the number of people coming in under a youth mobility scheme. She told POLITICO in a separate interview that such a scheme needs to be “balanced.”
“The UK-EU relationship is really important and is being reset, and we’re seeing cooperation around a whole series of different things,” she said. We also, at the same time, need to make sure that issues around migration are always properly managed and controlled.” A U.K. official later clarified that Cooper is keen to see an overall cap on numbers.
Boozy gift
As negotiations move from the technical to the political level this week, Thomas-Symonds sketched out plans for a fresh Britain-EU summit in Brussels when the time is right. “In terms of the date, I just want to make sure that we have made sufficient progress, to demonstrate that progress in a summit,” Nick Thomas-Symonds said.
“I think that the original [post-Brexit] Trade and Cooperation Agreement did not cover services in the way that it should have done,” he added. “We want to move forward on things like mutual recognition of professional qualifications.”
Thomas-Symonds, one of the government’s most ardent pro-Europeans, meanwhile told POLITICO he had forged a good relationship with “Maroš” (Šefčovič) – and had even brought him a Christmas present of a bottle of House of Commons whisky. “So there’s no doubt that there is that trajectory of closer U.K.-EU cooperation,” he quipped.
Dan Bloom and Esther Webber contributed reporting.