Other popular host countries include France, Ireland, Germany, Malta, Cyprus, and Portugal. According to the Office for National statistics (ONS), Spain is home to 308,805 UK citizens, followed by France at 157,062. Ireland and Germany are home to 112,090 and 96,200 Britons respectively.
About 189,000 of the 900,000 UK citizens who live in the EU are 65 years old or over, with most of them retired. About a third of those living in Cyprus, Portugal and Malta are over 65. However, the largest age groups are the 30-49-year-olds and 50-64-year-olds at 280,000 each. This strongly suggest that the EU labour market has a significant British element. Restricting free movement and access to jobs will severely affect UK citizens’ ability to work in the EU.
Similarly, UK citizens made about 47 million visits to other EU countries in 2015 presumably for business. Again, Spain topped this list at 12,988,000 visits with France in the second place at 8,849,000. Other popular destinations for UK business travellers in 2015 were Italy, Ireland, Portugal, Germany, Netherlands, Greece and Poland.
Since the EU referendum held last June and the subsequent recent triggering of Article 50 on 29th March, British citizens travelling to member countries of the EU have been left in a state of flux over numerous matters.
This feeling of uncertainty is set to continue during the two-year period of negotiations despite the fact that rules and regulations will not change until 2019.
However, there are some predictions that can be confidently made over how Brexit will impact Brits travelling to the EU for business, as well as pleasure.
British citizens are likely to face increased insurance premiums when driving on the continent because of recent changes to EU legislation, which will probably be reversed. It’s unclear how this will play out and canny customers will probably be able to avoid some price hikes.
At the moment, it seems unlikely that visas will be required to travel to countries in the EU, however, border crossings will almost certainly be slower than they are at present. Roaming charges for mobile phones were recently scrapped, but they may be reintroduced for British travellers using their phones abroad after Brexit.
Meanwhile, the EHIC card (European Healthcare and Insurance Card) currently entitles all EU citizens to free or reduced-cost health care in EU countries. This agreement will definitely have to be renegotiated and its continuation will probably require a reciprocal agreement for EU citizens to have the same access to the NHS.
Read on here for more information about how Brexit will affect British travellers…
