(Bloomberg) -- The European Union is suing the UK at the bloc’s top court for the way it allegedly limited the rights of EU citizens and their family members to live and work in Britain following Brexit.
The European Commission said Monday the nation hasn’t heeded a number of warnings for violating the bloc’s law on free movement when the Brexit transition period ran out at the end of 2020 — and that the shortcomings “continue to affect EU citizens.”
“After carefully assessing the replies” of the UK, “the commission maintains that several elements of the grievances remain unaddressed, including on the rights of workers and the rights of extended family members,” the Brussels-based EU authority said.
The move to escalate the case to the EU’s Court of Justice in Luxembourg is awkward for Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer. He’s pledged to deepen EU ties as part of his pitch to UK voters in the country’s July 4 general election, which his party won in a landslide. Labour has ruled out rejoining the EU’s single market and customs union, and says there won’t be a return to free movement, but is nevertheless coming under pressure from some EU partners who want youth mobility to form part of any new post-Brexit agreement.
“Those infractions relate to when the UK was a member state and during the transition period,” Starmer’s official spokesman Dave Pares said to reporters on Monday, declining to comment further.
Under the terms of the UK’s divorce deal with the 27-nation EU, the commission can still press ahead with legal cases that were started before the Brexit transition period. The commission said the underlying dispute builds on a case that started with a warning letter in 2011.
The withdrawal agreement protects the residence rights of those EU citizens who exercised free movement rights in the UK at the end of 2020.
--With assistance from Alex Morales and Stuart Biggs.
(Updates with comments from UK in fifth paragraph)
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