UK-EU Parliamentary Partnership Assembly 4 – 5 December 2023 London

PPA recommendation, adopted on Monday, 4 December 2023: Youth mobility schemes, student exchanges, school trips, and touring artists

Youth mobility

1. Notes that mobility involves the right to live, study and work in another country and must be differentiated from travelling;

2. Believes that facilitating reciprocal youth mobility to travel, work and study between the EU and the UK creates valuable opportunities for cultural exchange;

3. Notes that the UK has reciprocal youth mobility arrangements with over a dozen countries and territories; notes the UK’s Turing Scheme promotes outward educational mobility opportunities including within the EU and that the EU has programmes such as Erasmus+, Creative Europe and the European solidarity Corps that facilitate mobility, education and cultural exchange with third countries; recalls that the EU remains open to wider association in the Erasmus+ Programme;

4. Underlines that the mobility arrangements should be drafted in a manner that avoids any form of discrimination;

5. Acknowledges the possibility for short term visa free travel, but further acknowledges the lack of youth arrangements between the UK and the EU;

6. Notes that there have been discussions between the UK government and some, but not all, Member States, about the possibility of establishing such arrangements; acknowledges that these discussions create differences between the citizens of EU Member States and calls for a dialogue between the UK and the EU on this matter;

7. Notes the value of short-term labour mobility, but also considers that youth mobility has many benefits that extend beyond addressing labour shortages; further notes that au pairs from the EU currently do not benefit from the Youth Mobility Scheme visa;

8. Acknowledges that following the UK’s withdrawal from the EU, opportunities for people -to-people contacts, especially for young people across the EU and the UK, have been affected, but welcomes the respective value of the UK Turing Scheme and the EU Erasmus+ Programme in supporting youth mobility across Europe.

School visits

9. Believes that organised international school trips are a vital means for children to experience different cultures, learn to respect differences, broaden their horizons and knowledge, improve their language skills and create lasting positive connections between individuals residing in different countries;

10. Recognises that school trips between the UK and EU have become more difficult because of the requirement that each child travels with an individual passport and, for some pupils who are third country nationals, visa requirements;

11. Welcomes the March 2023 joint declaration by the President of France and Prime Minister of the UK committing to facilitation of school trips and exchanges; and that practical implementation of these commitments is being discussed in a UK-France Mobility Dialogue, and urges a conclusion without undue delay;

Touring artists

12. Recognises the intrinsic value of cultural exchange and creative partnerships, which foster mutual understanding between the citizens of our nations, enable networks fostering artistic creation and innovations that create benefits to culture, society and the economy, and maintain our strong shared beliefs in freedom of expression and cultural diversity;

13. Observes that strengthening cultural exchange is a focus of recent developments in both EU and UK foreign policy, as reflected in both the EU Work Plan for Culture 2023–2026, and the Integrated Review Refresh 2023;

14. Acknowledges that as a result of the UK’s departure from the EU Single Market and the Customs Union, UK and EU artists seeking to tour within the other party’s territory have experienced increased barriers to doing so, including visa or work permits, customs and transport restrictions;

15. Observes that the current situation can be particularly challenging for young and less established artists;

16. Notes that while the majority of Member States offer UK artists some form of short-term touring options without a visa or work permit, the maximum length of stay in a Member State varies between a single performance and up to 90 days in a 180 day period; and that the UK offers a 1-month period for paid performances and a 6-month period for unpaid performances comprising taking part in competitions, auditions and promotional activities as long as they are only claiming expenses or prize money;

17. Recalls that the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement provides for rules on the temporary import of goods, used by artists to import their equipment;

Recommendations

18. Recommends that the Partnership Council and the Member States work collaboratively to improve the opportunities for youth mobility between the EU and the UK;

19. Recommends that in the process of improving opportunities for youth mobility, special attention should be paid to procedural obstacles and costs, options for family reunification, access to public assistance as well as time and amount limitations;

20. Recommends that the Partnership Council invite the EU and the UK to accept that EU nationals and UK nationals can travel between their territories with identity cards in the context of organised school trips and that they remove the requirement for third country nationals to hold a visa when travelling in the context of organised school trips;

21. Recalls that the EU remains open to wider association in the Erasmus+ Programme and, noting the UK’s Turing Scheme which is also open to European students, encourages the Partnership Council to identify potential opportunities for greater cooperation to increase the number student exchanges between the UK and EU;

22. Urges the Partnership Council to prioritise the mobility of touring artists, with a view to developing a comprehensive approach that would allow artists and their teams to tour freely in the EU and UK – potentially as part of the forthcoming Trade and Cooperation Agreement Review3 – whilst recognising that this would form part of a broader political discussion encompassing a wide range of other issues;

23. Calls on the Partnership Council to work towards an agreement on streamlining visa, customs and work arrangements for touring artists and their teams; and

24. Calls for a redoubling of the efforts between the UK Government and the EU Member States to tackle artists’ concerns referred to above; for EU Schengen Member States to expand their offer for visa and work permit-free visits for touring artists and their teams up to the Schengen limit of 90 days in a period of 180, and to provide clear and comprehensive guidance online for touring artists and staff; and for the UK to reciprocate these efforts to reduce barriers to EU touring artists and to make clear information available online.