Roundtable Discussion: 'Time to Rethink EU Free Movement of Persons?'

Location: Cavonius Centre, Gonville and Caius College, West Road, Cambridge

Hosted by ESRC Britain in a Changing Europe Senior Fellow, Professor Catherine Barnard and Dr Amy Ludlow

Some people believe that EU migrant workers come to the UK in order to claim benefits, or to work in jobs that are low paid so that they can claim in work benefits like tax credits. Others believe that EU migrant workers ‘take’ jobs from UK workers and undercut wages and other labour standards. The British Prime Minister, David Cameron, takes the view that EU migration to the UK is inflating the costs of social security and burdening over-stretched public services. He is currently seeking changes to the EU Treaty rules on free movement as part of his negotiations with the EU prior to the UK’s referendum about EU membership in 2016/17. In this roundtable discussion, experts on EU migration law consider the pull factors that bring EU migrants to the UK, what we know about migrants’ experiences once they are living and working in the UK, and prospects for reform in the light of the crucial European Council meeting the previous week.

Programme

Tea and coffee will be available outside the Cavonius Centre from 13.45 onwards.

2pm: Welcome and context: the ‘Honeypot Britain’ project and enforcement of labour rights by EU-8 migrant workers in the UK.

• Catherine Barnard, Professor of European Union Law, Trinity College, Cambridge, Senior Fellow, ESRC UK in a Changing Europe
• Amy Ludlow, Fellow of Caius College, Cambridge, principal researcher ESRC UK in a Changing Europe

2.15pm: Panel discussion: Time to rethink EU free movement of persons?

• Jonathan Portes, Principal Research Fellow at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research and Senior Fellow, ESRC Britain in a Changing Europe
• Damian Chalmers, Professor of European Union Law, London School of Economics, Senior Fellow, UK in a Changing Europe
• Charles Clarke, former Home Secretary
• Bernard Ryan, Professor of Migration Law, University of Leicester

3.15pm: Tea and coffee

3.30pm: Roundtable discussion

4.30pm: Challenges, possibilities and ideas going forward

5pm: Close

Advocate General Julianne Kokott will be delivering this year’s Centre for European Legal Studies’ annual Mackenzie Stuart Lecture in the Law Faculty from 17.30 on ‘Investment Arbitration and EU Law’. Roundtable participants are warmly invited to join us.