Campaign Up To September
The UK Government's position on visa-free travel for UK citizens
HMG’s early position was to ignore the issue. On 30 March a Minister stated that improving access beyond what was permitted under the EU wide Schengen 90/180-day rule was not part of the UK's approach to future relationship negotiations with the EU.
During the COVID-19 crisis HMG stated that it was pressing ahead with negotiations with the EU. The 180 days visa-free campaign was launched in response.
In May the Government accepted that the Schengen 90/180-day rule would cause second home owners and others problems. For months the Government has repeatedly stated that these matters are subject to negotiation but has failed to produce any tangible proof. On September 14 the Government stated that it was not seeking to agree specific mobility arrangements for owners of a second home - see the detail here
As things stand now HM Government has offered EU citizens twice the length of stay in the UK than the EU is offering UK citizens. EU citizens will be able to come to the UK for 6 months at a time. UK citizens will only be able to visit the EU for up to 90 days. They then have to leave the EU and cannot return for another 90 days.
The public side of 180 Days visa-free campaign
One member of the team has been campaigning about the impact of the Schengen 90/180 day rules since mid 2018. Another member carried out substantial research on use of visas in France in early 2020. When HMG stated that it was pressing ahead with negotiations with the EU, we joined forces with our editor to launch the 180 days visa-free campaign on April 25 with template letters to send to MPs. The initial focus was on UK residents with 2nd homes in France.
We created our first letter to French députés. We created follow-up letters in light of some responses from MPs and nil responses from others. We simplified our letter process and initiated special letters to MPs in late June, July and September and drafted another letter to French Deputes in September. By mid September, some 730 letters had been sent to MPs and some 200 letters to députés.
We widened our approach to include those who travel extensively in Europe and those with second homes in other Schengen countries. We created a public Facebook page to make contact with all those affected by Schengen. https://www.facebook.com/pg/180daysvisafree/posts. We opened a 180 days Twitter account.
To highlight the effect of Schengen we created a range of scenarios to illustrate how Schengen will affect people. They can be viewed here
Behind the scenes activities
Committee on the Future Relationship with the EU (FREU)
We made early contact with the Committee and submitted two extensive papers. This work is ongoing and will be updated in due course.
July Homeowner Survey
In June it became increasingly likely that people would require a visa to visit their French second home in 2021. To inform our intended work with the French Consul General, we carried out a detailed survey to understand the nature and size of the problem. For more information see here
French Consulate in London and their visa agent TLS
The survey indicated a surge of long-stay visa applications around February 2021 which would require the processing of hundreds of visas each working day for 6-8 weeks. We shared this information with the French Consulate in London and TLS at the start of September.
Progress to date
On September 16, TLS acknowledged receipt of our couriered letter but as they just provide a service to the consulate they were unable to comment and passed on our communication to the French Consulate.
Our couriered letter was delivered to the French Consulate on September 3. We did not receive any communication from them in September. We sent further letters in early October
APPG on France
In early September we made contact with the All Party Parliamentary Group on France, sending them information similar to that which we had sent to the French Consul and TLS. We received a prompt response.
They later wrote back to inform us that they had discussed the matter and were seeking further information from the UK and French Authorities. We are continuing the dialogue and will report further in due course.