More than 40,000 EU citizens could be allowed to enter Britain under youth mobility scheme

According to the commission, this net outflow creates significant visa "headroom" for the Home Office to welcome European participants while still honouring the Government's commitment to reduce net migration.

Such an arrangement would represent the most generous youth mobility scheme Britain currently operates with any partner country.

Europe Minister Nick Thomas-Symonds is set to head to Brussels for discussions with his EU counterpart Maros Sefcovic.

While technical negotiations on the details of Sir Keir Starmer's reset have been underway for several weeks between officials, this marks the first occasion talks will take place at a ministerial level.

The discussions are anticipated to wrap up by spring.

Mr Thomas-Symonds stated he was "committed to driving forward progress" in the negotiations.

The potential youth mobility scheme forms part of broader efforts to reshape the UK's relationship with Brussels following Brexit.

However, London and Brussels remain divided on the structure of any agreement.

The EU's preferred approach involves an uncapped scheme featuring an emergency mechanism should numbers spike unexpectedly.

"We do not see the need for setting a quota or cap. What is wrong with our young Europeans? We do not have a problem with young Brits," one diplomat told The Times.

Meanwhile, the UK Government has insisted that any scheme must be "balanced, time-limited and capped".

However, Sir Keir has already been warned that he risks reimposing freedom of movement by the back door if Labour pushes ahead with an uncapped youth mobility scheme.

Brussels’s initial youth mobility also runs the risk of opening the door to hundreds of thousands of EU migrants every year, a shocking GB News analysis has revealed.

GB News revealed that three-in-five EU nationals who registered to enter the workforce between 2012 and 2024 were under 30-years-old.

Data shared with the People's Channel showed a peak of 65 per cent in 2012/13, with a Covid-era slump down to 48 per cent in 2020/21.

However, a post-lockdown bounce to 63 per cent in 2023/24 ultimately restored the proportion of EU arrivals who sit within the Youth Mobility age range to the UK’s pre-Brexit figures.

The data also echoes statistics compiled by the Migration Observatory, showing 1,363,000 (65 per cent) of all EU-born adults who arrived in Britain between 2004 and 2016 were aged 18 to 30.

EU migration led to a surge in Britain’s overall migration figures following the bloc’s expansion in 2004, outstripping non-EU migration at the time of the Brexit vote by around 521,000 to just 237,000.

Brussels’s initial proposal, penned in April 2024, stated that those aged 18 to 30 should not need a purpose to enter the UK or adhere to a strict quota.

However, public opinion strongly favours the proposal, with YouGov polling conducted for the commission and Best for Britain showing 72 per cent of adults support a youth mobility scheme, including nearly half of prospective Reform voters.

Support has grown considerably since the idea first emerged, rising from 59 per cent at the time of the last general election.

Professor Brian Bell, chair of the migration advisory committee, told the commission that a scheme capped at 50,000 annually would likely see equivalent numbers of young Britons heading to Europe.

"If it's a balanced scheme, my guess is the overall effect on net migration is essentially zero," he said.

Last year, Britain issued just 24,400 youth mobility visas whilst an estimated 68,495 UK citizens travelled to Australia, New Zealand and Canada under equivalent programmes.