The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Anxious wait to find out status
EU nationals who have called Scotland their home for some time now have suggested the entire process of securing settled status has been unduly arduous for many.
Dundee politics lecturer Dejan Stjepanovic, a father-ofone whose daughter was born here, secured settled status after an anxious three to four-month wait, but described the whole process as “unpleasant” to say the least.
He was a schoolboy in the early 1990s when Yugoslavia fractured into new states including Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia and Macedonia, and remembers a dark episode in Slovenian history when 25,000 people were eased from the register of permanent residents, effectively losing their rights to work and live locally in their home country for 20 years.
The Croatian politics expert stressed that a direct comparison cannot be drawn between the Balkans at that time and Britain now, but added: “Some people will fall between the cracks.”
Mateusz Lackowski, 28, originally from Gdansk, Poland, moved to the UK 13 years ago and has lived in Cupar for the last six.
Mr Lackowski, dad to Xander, aged three, and one-year-old Elijah, praised the work of the Fife Migrants Forum which helped him with his application earlier this year and he is confident he will be given settled status as a result.
However, he said the system felt “very alienating” to EU citizens who have spent years working and contributing to local communities.