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IF BRITAIN WERE TO LEAVE THE EU DISCUSSIONS OVER MARKET ACCESS AND FINANCE WOULD LIKELY TRUMP EXPATS CONCERNS, SAYS PROFESSOR STEVE PEERS - BUT THEIR PROBLEMS COULD BE QUICKLY RESOLVED WITH

A GRANDFATHER CLAUSE. HE EXPLAINS MORE. FOLLOWING a Brexit, market access will be the biggest issue: goods, services and capital movements - then will come the awkward question of the

movement of people. There’s a risk that politicians are going to think about who is voting in the UK. They are going to think about financial services, which give critical donations to

parties, and that’s going to put much more political pressure in that area. It will be higher up the negotiations than expats. It would be an enormous negotiation and you never know what

might become a political football. It could be thrown off course by a lot of different things, from personalities to random events that hit headlines. It might come down to bilateral deals.

In principle it would start from the status quo and we would put forward a list of things that we want to keep, such as the free market of goods and services and then they would put forward

what they want to keep. The lists would not match up exactly but expats would appear on both sides. Each side wants to protect its own and in that sense it might be easier to discuss. It’s

an easy quid-pro-quo. There’s a good chance that a deal could be reached simply to grandfather the rights of everyone who is already living outside the UK in an EU country. Future expats,

those who leave after a British exit, might however have more problems unless we continue with the current freedom of movement rules. While some of the Eurosceptic arguments rest on issues

of sovreignty, the loudest voices in the UK are against the freedom of movement rules, so it seems likely that these would change. Existing expats, though, are likely to be saved from this

freedom of movement discussions and treated as a special case. The priority for expats should be to do a deal for reciprocal protection of people who are already here and extend it to tax

and inheritance – those sorts of political things. I can see a scenario where both sides are perfectly happy to protect all the rights of expats on both sides. It’s possibly slightly more

likely than not. It could be a very easy thing to agree but it would not be overwhelmingly likely to be so. A big percentage of the UK expats are retirees. We would be asking for something

difficult - to protect people who are economically inactive - and there are various ways in which it could get complicated. There could be some political problems with health, unless we’re

moving into a system of health insurance cards, and social security agreements between the countries. There might also be some discriminatory taxes on housing and inheritance unless we

negotiate a deal. Meanwhile it might be convenient for the British government to save money by not updating pensions in the same way it does with other non-EU countries and some of the

exportable bene- fits would not be exported. _Steve Peers is a_ _Professor of EU_ _Law and Human_ _Rights Law at_ _the University_ _of Essex_