London, United Kingdom, May 23, 2025
- CONNECTS-UK welcomes the inclusion of youth mobility in the conclusions of the recent EU-UK Summit—an overdue and necessary step toward rebuilding opportunities for young people in the post-Brexit context.
- We urge both parties to meet the renewed agenda with concrete steps, ensuring its implementation with solid policy progress, especially as the UK Government’s new White Paper on Immigration signals an overall tightening of UK migration policy, casting doubts on its intention to facilitate mobility.
- The proposed “youth experience” scheme, supported by a dedicated visa route and potential UK re-engagement with Erasmus+, must go beyond symbolic gestures to deliver tangible, long-term benefits—enhancing academic and student mobility, promoting innovation and academic excellence, and strengthening EU-UK ties.
The recent EU-UK Summit concluded with agreements to address the post-Brexit friction in some policy areas by establishing substantial collaboration and a stronger and forward-looking relationship between the two entities. Youth mobility was one of the key topics discussed and was officially included in the “Common Understanding for a renewed agenda for European Union-United Kingdom cooperation”. The agenda introduces the idea of a future “youth experience” scheme, supported by a dedicated visa route, which would allow young people to move across borders to work, study, volunteer, or travel. It also envisions the UK rejoining the Erasmus+ programme under mutually agreed terms that ensure fair financial contributions and benefits.
At CONNECTS-UK, we welcome this development and mutual agreement.Youth mobility has become an increasingly visible issue across sectors since Brexit took effect, with multiple communities shedding light on the gaps of the post-Brexit era concerning the range of untapped opportunities that the movement of young people between the EU and the UK offers. While the renewed agenda on youth mobility agreed at the summit seems promising, we believe it should be met with concrete steps, ensuring its implementation with solid policy progress. This is especially important in the current context, given that the recent publication of the UK Government’ new White Paper on Immigration clearly signals an overall tightening of UK migration policy, casting doubts on the government’s intention to facilitate mobility.
As we closely and cautiously follow the developments, we are keen to see any youth mobility agreement integrated into a broader and more ambitious approach to talent mobility, as we consider it a crucial step to the strengthening of ties between the UK and the EU. CONNECTS-UK has consistently advocated for this step, as seen in the statement we released earlier this year, stating what an EU-UK youth mobility scheme should look like: accessible, responsive to the realities of young people’s lives in education, research, and early career development, and grounded on the pillar that mobile talent enables the UK to maintain its status as global leader in research and innovation.
More recently, we participated in a public debate on “Youth Mobility between the UK and the EU” organised by the European Parliament Liaison Office in the UK, New Europeans UK, and the British Youth Council. In that forum, we underlined that a youth mobility scheme must go beyond symbolic gestures – it should deliver tangible, long-term benefits for individuals and societies alike, particularly by strengthening the UK and EU’s competitiveness through enhanced academic and student mobility.
As a platform of EU researchers based in the UK, we are not only directly impacted by these developments but also deeply engaged in shaping the path forward. Hence, we remain committed to supporting a youth mobility framework that enables young people to move across borders, instilling innovation, academic excellence, and international collaboration in both the UK and the EU.
Authors:
Virginia A. Amigo Dotras – CONNECTS-UK
Igor Arrieta – Society of Spanish Researchers in the UK (SRUK/CERU)
Catarina M. Liberato – Portuguese Association of Research and Students in the UK (PARSUK)
