Features

BREXIT How will it affect us?

Living, working or studying in the UK will now be more difficult due to new entry requirements, and while the movement of goods between the UK and the EU will continue, they will be subject to new border controls

The Eu­ro­pean Union has suf­fered its first ca­su­alty. The exit of the United King­dom will dis­rupt the lives of the British, but also of Eu­ro­peans. Here’s a look at some of the most com­mon ques­tions about Brexit and how it will af­fect us in Cat­alo­nia. The With­drawal Agree­ment sets out the con­di­tions for the sep­a­ra­tion and the Trade and Co­op­er­a­tion Agree­ment lays the ground­work for the new re­la­tion­ship.

Do I need a visa now to go to Lon­don or Ed­in­burgh?

Not if it is for a short stay of up to three months, for tourism, for ex­am­ple. You of course need a pass­port be­cause an ID card is no longer valid. These con­di­tions apply to all 27 EU mem­ber states, and so ap­plies to flights from Barcelona, Berlin or Bucharest.

And do the British need a visa to come here?

As long as the UK rec­i­p­ro­cates with all Eu­ro­pean cit­i­zens, the EU will allow short visa-free vis­its. Yet, it has al­ready warned Lon­don that if it dis­crim­i­nates against any coun­try, it will sus­pend this right to the British.

Is my Eu­ro­pean health card still valid if I have an emer­gency?

Yes. Tourists, stu­dents or peo­ple on busi­ness in the UK will be cov­ered for med­ical emer­gen­cies. For stays of longer than six months, the British au­thor­i­ties will apply a “health sur­charge” of al­most 700 euros a year to adults and around 500 euros to mi­nors.

Will my phone calls be free of roam­ing charges?

No. It will de­pend on each provider whether they charge extra for calls from the UK and vice versa.

Can I buy duty free prod­ucts?

Yes, al­though with lim­its on the amount of al­co­hol and to­bacco pur­chased.

What do I need to do to work in the UK?

Meet the entry con­di­tions for for­eign­ers, whether from China, the USA or Mo­rocco. The British gov­ern­ment has a points-based im­mi­gra­tion sys­tem that pri­ori­tises highly skilled work­ers and health work­ers, and makes it dif­fi­cult for peo­ple look­ing for lower-pay­ing jobs to enter.

What re­quire­ments do they ask for?

There are sev­eral types of visas, but in gen­eral, you must have a job offer be­fore en­ter­ing the coun­try. In ad­di­tion, you must speak Eng­lish, have a high school diploma or an equiv­a­lent level of ed­u­ca­tion, and earn at least 28,400 euros a year. If the salary is lower, it can be off­set by other fac­tors, such as hav­ing a doc­tor­ate or work­ing in a sec­tor where there is a labour short­age.

How much is a work per­mit?

Prices range from 250 to 1,300 euros. For ex­am­ple, a stan­dard visa to work for three years costs about 670 euros, while for sci­en­tists, en­gi­neers, pro­gram­mers, artists or graphic de­sign­ers, the cost rises by about 500 euros.

Which pro­fes­sions have pri­or­ity?

Aside from highly paid ones, the UK wants to at­tract sci­en­tists, re­searchers and health­care pro­fes­sion­als. It has a pro­gramme called “global tal­ent” for “po­ten­tial lead­ers” in re­search, cul­ture or dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies. The price to apply for this five-year re­new­able visa is around 600 euros per per­son.

And health work­ers?

If they meet the basic salary, ed­u­ca­tion and lan­guage re­quire­ments, doc­tors and nurses will be able to apply for a visa at a re­duced price and will be fast-tracked.

What if my com­pany wants to trans­fer me there?

There is an agree­ment to trans­fer work­ers in case a com­pany has a head of­fice or an as­so­ci­ated com­pany in the UK. It also works the other way around. “In­tra­cor­po­rate” stays may last a max­i­mum of three years.

Does all this af­fect those who are al­ready res­i­dent in the UK?

No. Thanks to the EU-UK With­drawal Agree­ment, all Eu­ro­peans re­sid­ing on the British Isles until the end of 2020 will keep in­tact the rights they had (so­cial se­cu­rity, pen­sion, health) for the rest of their lives, in­clud­ing fam­ily re­uni­fi­ca­tion. Their chil­dren will also enjoy these rights even if they are born after 2021. How­ever, they must com­plete the rel­e­vant pro­ce­dures to ob­tain res­i­dent sta­tus.

Will it be pos­si­ble to do an Eras­mus in the UK?

No, ex­cept in North­ern Ire­land. It’s a blow to stu­dents in Spain. British uni­ver­si­ties top the world rank­ings and are the sec­ond favourite des­ti­na­tion of Span­ish stu­dents. The UK prime min­is­ter Boris John­son says he will cre­ate a new mo­bil­ity pro­gramme, but the de­tails are still un­known.

Will there be tar­iffs?

No. The Trade and Co­op­er­a­tion Agree­ment signed with the EU cre­ates a free trade area with­out quo­tas or tar­iffs.

And bor­der con­trols?

Yes. Being out­side the cus­toms union and the sin­gle mar­ket, freight traf­fic will be sub­ject to the in­con­ve­nience of bor­der pa­per­work. How­ever, Brus­sels and Lon­don have agreed on some sim­pli­fi­ca­tions to ease the bu­reau­cratic bur­den.

Will com­pa­nies face new reg­u­la­tions to ex­port to the UK mar­ket?

All prod­ucts will be sub­ject to UK reg­u­la­tions, which will not nec­es­sar­ily be the same as in the EU. How­ever, a sys­tem has been cre­ated to sim­plify the process by cre­at­ing “self-cer­tifi­cates” of com­pli­ance with the rules.

In case of doubt, what can com­pa­nies and free­lancers do?

Con­tact the Cata­lan gov­ern­ment. Both the Cat­alo­nia Trade and In­vest­ment agency, Acció, and the Cata­lan agri-food agency, Prodeca, offer as­sis­tance and ad­vice to com­pa­nies for meet­ing the chal­lenges of ac­cess­ing the British mar­ket after Brexit. The UK is Cat­alo­nia’s fifth largest trad­ing part­ner and rep­re­sents 5.5% of ex­ports, equiv­a­lent to 1.8% of Cata­lan GDP.

Which sec­tors will suf­fer the most from change in Cat­alo­nia?

The phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal, tex­tile, and es­pe­cially the agri-food sec­tors. The lat­ter is one of the largest ex­porters to the British mar­ket, with mainly meat prod­ucts (22%) and bev­er­ages (14%), es­pe­cially wines.

And the tourism sec­tor?

In prin­ci­ple, it should not be so af­fected be­cause tourists will be able to con­tinue en­ter­ing with­out a visa for stays of less than three months. The re­vival of this sec­tor will de­pend more on the evo­lu­tion of the pan­demic than on Brexit.

Does the trade agree­ment cover ser­vices?

Some, such as telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions, trans­porta­tion, au­dits and legal ser­vices. By con­trast, the au­dio­vi­sual sec­tor is not in­cluded. In gen­eral, ser­vice providers on the other side of the Eng­lish Chan­nel and will have to com­ply with the rules set out by each coun­try to con­tinue of­fer­ing ser­vices.

What about fi­nan­cial ser­vices?

They are not cov­ered ei­ther. Brus­sels and Lon­don aim to reach an agree­ment be­fore the end of March to mu­tu­ally agree how the fi­nan­cial in­dus­try should op­er­ate.

Will ex­tra­di­tions be pos­si­ble under the Euro-order sys­tem?

No. The mech­a­nism is for the ex­clu­sive use of EU mem­bers only. How­ever, Brus­sels and Lon­don have agreed on their own sys­tem of ex­tra­di­tions with “strict dead­lines, solid guar­an­tees, pro­ce­dural rights and ju­di­cial con­trol”. For all Euro-or­ders ex­e­cuted be­fore 2021, Eu­ro­pean leg­is­la­tion will con­tinue to apply.

fea­ture in­ter­na­tional

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