Hi,
I hope you have all had a good summer, despite the heatwaves, forest fires and drought that has plagued Europe this year.
At least the feared travel chaos doesn't seem to have materialised, although that was in part due to ports and providers like Dover and Eurotunnel suspending the biometric EES checks until the end of the busy summer period.
I travelled through Dover in August and the waits were lengthy but not out of the ordinary. But it was hard to imagine how authorities are going to get EES up and running and avoid long queues for the next peak travel period at Christmas. We will keep you fully informed of all the developments.
The big news impacting Brits in Europe in recent weeks has come in Sweden. Authorities there have been under fire after stories of elderly Brits, who have lived in the country for many years but now face deportation, made international headlines.
There was the case of Joyce Thomas, a 78-year-old retired nurse who has lived in Sweden for 21 years who now faces deportation because of a late application for post-Brexit residency rights was rejected.
And there was the tale of Horace Mason, a 74-year-old man who also faces being forced to leave the country despite requiring constant care in a home for his severe Alzheimer's. He was given 10 days to leave the country after he lost a post-Brexit migration court case.
Our team at The Local Sweden also spoke to Nichola Stanlick, who risks being ordered to return to the UK, despite coming to Sweden when she was seven years old and being, in everything apart from her country of birth and her citizenship, basically Swedish.
Sweden's uniquely strict approach to applications for post-Brexit residency under the UK Withdrawal Agreement is nothing new. The Local Sweden reported on it extensively back in 2024, speaking to several of the British citizens rejected, and covering the cases of the Bollywood actor Kenny Solomons, who is married to Swedish popstar Tess Merkel, and Welsh truck driver Nigel Davies.
According to Eurostat numbers, Sweden has issued deportation orders to 2,500 British nationals since 2021, a third of the total number of Brits ordered to leave across the EU. The UK Foreign Office calculates fully 27.5 percent of Britons in Sweden were refused post-Brexit residency, compared to an EU average of under 4 percent.
So why has there been a second wave of deportations?
David Milstead, a Stockholm University physicist who volunteers for the Brits in Sweden group, told The Local's Richard Orange that the recent wave of deportation orders is an "aftershock", caused by the way that Sweden's Migration Agency opted to deal with the first wave of post-Brexit rejections in 2023 and 2024.
"The reason why we're still seeing deportations now is because a lot of cans were kicked down the road," he said.
You can read the full interview with David and get his explanation for why Sweden has proved such an outlier compared to how other EU countries dealt with post-Brexit residency rights in our full article.
In an opinion piece following the controversy The Local's James Savage pointed the finger of blame at the EU Commission, which he blamed for "betraying Brexit Brits in Sweden".
Urging the EU to step in and protect the livelihoods of these Britons, James writes: "Brits living in Sweden during Britain’s EU membership were exercising their rights as EU citizens. The EU promised them that they would be able to stay. Sweden is betraying that promise – by not lifting a finger to help, the EU is party to that betrayal. If the European Commission places any value at all on the free movement of people, it must act before more people have their lives uprooted."
You can read the full coverage of the ongoing controversy at The Local Sweden's Brexit page.
New EU banking law
If you have an account with a UK, US or other non-EU bank, you may have recently received a message telling you about a new EU directive.
Essentially having bank accounts in non-EU countries could be about to get more complicated for foreign residents in Europe, due to the EU's Capital Requirements Directive, Article 21(c).
To get a full explanation of the directive and what it could mean for you, read our full article.
Benefits for Britons in Europe under threat?
Nigel Farage’s far-right Reform party has pledged to ban foreigners in Britain from receiving benefits if the party wins power in the next election.
This would include Europeans living in the UK, leading to suggestions that the EU would retaliate with similar measures for Brits residing across the bloc.
Speaking on BBC Breakfast, Reform’s Danny Kruger said: "So I'd understand if the Europeans decided to apply the same principle that we are and to deny our nationals access to their welfare system and we will pay for that ourselves."
A spokesperson for the governing Labour Party also said that "these plans would mean ripping up the UK’s Withdrawal Agreement with the EU, plunging the UK back into years of Brexit renegotiations."
Our editor in Spain Alex Dunham has looked into the likelihood that Brussels would react and what impact it could have on Brits in Europe.
READ ALSO: Germany and the UK launch simplified travel rules for school groups
Travel news
The summer has seen a rash of headlines about possible competitors to the Eurostar's cross-Channel train route - but what happened to the plan to expand the cramped waiting areas at St Pancras? Our editor in France Emma Pearson looks at when Eurostar passengers might actually be able to find a seat in the waiting areas in Paris and London.
And finally the company behind a catamaran ferry service between Boulogne and Dover is set to pilot a new France-UK route later this year.
Thanks for reading. I'll be back with more news for Brits in Europe next month.
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