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You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/dec/22/uk-nationals-in-berlin-given-assurance-of-residency-in-event-of-no-brexit-deal
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UK nationals in Berlin assured of residency in event of no Brexit deal | |
(35 minutes later) | |
British nationals living in Berlin have been reassured that an urgent registration process to secure legal status will be in place for them in the event of the UK leaving the EU with no deal. | |
Worried Britons who attended a meeting hosted by the British embassy said they felt relief that the state authorities had been able to go further than the European commission, whose no deal planning announced this week made them feel abandoned. | |
There are an estimated 100,000 Britons living in Germany, the majorityof them working, but they fear they will be treated as third-country nationals after Brexit, last in the queue for jobs after Germans and EU nationals, as is the legal norm for people from outside the bloc who apply for work. | |
Berlin recently overtook North Rhine-Westphalia as the state with the most UK nationals with 18,000, the ambassador said in his opening remarks. | |
Engelhard Manzanke, the head of the Foreigners Registration Office at the Berlin state office for citizens, told Britons that he could not say what kind of residence status they would get when the UK leaves the EU, or what documents would be required. | |
He promised, however, that the immigration office would clarify the situation as soon as possible and be “very generous” with UK nationals in Berlin who have to go through the federal legislative process to establish their new status. | |
He told them it would take eight weeks for the immigration office in Berlin to issue residence permits and that it would not be possible before 29 March, but he reassured Britons in the audience that the city had an “excellent, flexible team which coped with the refugee crisis two years ago”. | |
He told them that Britons would be able to register their personal details on an official website by the second week of January, to help establish that they have a continued right to live and work in the state in the event of no deal. | |
No deal threatens 1m Britons' EU residence rights, commission says | No deal threatens 1m Britons' EU residence rights, commission says |
One British national at the meeting said they felt that at last someone had listened to them after two years of anxiety. “His statement is remarkable, in my view because he, as the first of the heads of the immigration offices in Germany, is willing to come out at this stage and put Brits’ minds at rest,” the source said. | |
France also sought to reassure British nationals of their post-Brexit status. | |
The Europe minister, Nathalie Loiseau, said the country would guarantee the residence, employment and welfare rights of the 160,000 British citizens living there provided that Britain offered the same guarantees to French expatriates. | |
The British in Europe campaign group said UK nationals in the EU were facing “a rough landing” in the absence of a deal. Guaranteeing residency rights and issuing documents by 30 March would be a “massive and overwhelming task in some countries”, the group’s co-chair, Jane Golding, said. | |
Brussels has urged European governments to take a generous approach to protecting the rights of 1 million Britons living in the EU if the UK leaves without a deal. | |
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