EU targets Britain residence red tape

‘Site must’ve been hacked’

BRUSSELS, April 12, (Agencies): The European Union should tell London to cut red tape that makes it hard for EU expats to confirm their residence in Britain, senior EU officials said after a meeting in Brussels on Tuesday to prepare for Brexit talks.

Advisers to the 27 other EU government leaders broadly endorsed draft guidelines for negotiations with Britain on its withdrawal. In a mark of fireworks to come when talks get under way in early June, some pressed for clearer, tougher wording on how much Britain must pay to cover its commitments to the Union.

And, in highlighting their priority to ease uncertainty for some 3 million EU citizens there, many voiced concern that British administrative rules were adding to people’s worries.

“It’s outrageous to use bureaucracy like this,” said one senior official from an EU government who participated in the meeting of advisers, known as sherpas. Another said several had spoken of demanding London ease such “administrative burdens”.

Applications for lifetime residency status have soared since Britons voted in June to leave but many have been rejected and others complain that the 85-page form and demands for copious proof of earnings and movements during the five-year qualifying period make it hard to claim their legal rights.

Meanwhile, the voter registration site used ahead of Britain’s referendum on whether to leave the European Union may have crashed because it was attacked by foreign powers, a committee of lawmakers said Wednesday.

The House of Commons Public Administration Committee said Wednesday that it “does not rule out the possibility” that a foreign cyberattack may have caused the website to go down on June 7, about two weeks before the vote.

Officials initially blamed the crash on a surge in voter demand following a debate, but the committee said it could have been subjected to a “distributed denial of service” attack, in which a site is overwhelmed with traffic.

May

Attack

The report did not say who might have been behind the attack but named Russia and China as countries with a sophisticated approach to cyber-interference.

The committee said the incident had no material effect on the outcome of the referendum, but that lawmakers were “deeply concerned about these allegations about foreign interference.”

The committee said the referendum was generally well-run, but called for greater emphasis on cybersecurity in the future. Britain voted on June 23 to leave the EU. In related news, the introduction of physical customs checks following Brexit would be a catastrophe for British ports and shipping and would likely reduce the volume of trade, the head of the sector’s UK industry body said on Wednesday.

Prime Minister Theresa May has said she wants a customs arrangement with the European Union which allows trade to be “as frictionless as possible”, but few expect goods will be able to continue to move as seamlessly as they do within the bloc.

“The nightmare scenario is actually having physical customs borders ... it would be absolutely a catastrophe for the ports and for our sector,” Guy Platten, Chief Executive of the UK Chamber of Shipping, told reporters.

“You’ve suddenly got lorries stacked up, you’ve got sailings cancelled ... the whole supply chain is completely affected.”