Brexit, the day after
Audio 03:29
Prime Minister Boris Johnson in Downing Street after the press conference announcing the post-Brexit deal, December 24, 2020 © REUTERS - POOL
By: Dominique Baillard Follow
9 min
After the New Year's Bridge, Brexit and its consequences in the extraordinary context of the pandemic, will start to be felt from this Monday.
Close-up on the upheavals for Europeans going to the United Kingdom, the consequences on the health of the British and details on the cases still pending.
Publicity
Since January 1, for tourist trips as for business trips on both sides of the Channel, you must have at least your identity card to cross the Channel.
The British will even ask Europeans for a passport from October 1.
The subjects of his majesty must for their part have a return ticket, a certificate of health insurance, the European form allowing free access to care anywhere in Europe has lived.
For European students in the United Kingdom, this concerned 143,000 young people at the start of the last school year, it is especially painful for the wallet: from the next school year, there is no longer an
Erasmus program
and for those who will come anyway. tuition fees will double.
Some 20,000 euros for a year, to which must be added a health insurance of 500 euros plus a student visa at 390 euros!
Little consolation for these students, as for all Europeans traveling to the United Kingdom, the telephone bill will not be affected by Brexit;
British operators have promised to keep roaming free.
French operators too.
What changes for Europeans wanting to go to work in the United Kingdom?
Access is tightened: to stay more than six months it will be necessary to obtain a resident visa.
Only those who have a promise of employment with a minimum annual salary of 28,600 euros will be admissible, - researchers and teachers are exempt from this condition.
Something to worry about business leaders used to working with cheap labor from Eastern Europe in agriculture, services, especially health, activities where wages are often below the new threshold required .
There are also jobs in tension for a long time such as that of welder or veterinarian.
The latter are even more sought after with Brexit to carry out border controls.
The influx of European labor has been one of the engines of British growth, but it has started to decline since the referendum, already 100,000 Poles less.
The post-Covid recovery could suffer.
Has Brexit made Britain's vaccination program easier?
Already a million Britons have received a first injection and this number could quickly double.
Because London did not wait for the green light from the European body to authorize the Pfizer BioNtech vaccine and that of Astra Zeneca developed with the University of Oxford.
The government had the right to do so, but had the UK chosen to remain in the EU, it would no doubt have been under great pressure to comply with internal usage, leaving preeminence to the European body.
Even before Brexit is implemented, Boris Johnson is thus demonstrating how his country is more agile outside the European straitjacket.
This reactivity is a bit the tree that hides the forest from the problems of the health sector.
Because the NHS, the national health service to which the British are very attached, is in a very bad shape.
Access to drugs or medical equipment massively imported from the European Union could deteriorate with Brexit.
So is investing in this industry.
The most urgent issue to be resolved concerns the staff shortage.
65,000 NHS employees are European nationals, 100,000 in personal services.
How to maintain these employees and especially how to attract new ones with limited means?
There is indeed an accelerated work visa procedure for these professionals but not sure that this is enough to attract candidates frightened by the Covid and by the Brexit.
The City and the other pending cases
Almost all services are excluded from the agreement.
The activity of lawyers, consultants and architects is absolutely not regulated.
Financial services either.
The City
is, however, a big chunk in trade between the United Kingdom and the European Union: the deficit in goods is 97 billion pounds, but the City helps to rebalance the accounts since it has a surplus of 19 billion pounds. books with the mainland.
This Monday morning the City can no longer raise debt for a French or Italian company, or manage the bank accounts of British citizens living in the EU, their accounts have been closed.
Another hole in the racket: data protection.
The GDPR, the European regulation still applies until July 1.
By then the British will have to have published their own regulations or probably an adaptation of the European model.
Facebook and Google have not waited to transfer the management of their British customers' data to the United States, a country which currently offers less protection for confidentiality as for the use of digital data.
Newsletter
Receive all international news directly in your mailbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
google-play-badge_FR
United Kingdom
Brexit
Coronavirus