News story: Plans outlined to extend ‘settled status’ deal to citizens from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway

Plans to grant residents from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway similar rights post-Brexit as those from EU Member States, have been outlined this week as engagement between the UK and the EEA EFTA members intensifies.

Following on from the agreement reached in December to secure the rights of the 3 million EU citizens living in the UK and the 1 million UK citizens living in the 27 Member States, government officials have met with their EEA EFTA counterparts in order to extend the deal to each other’s citizens.

The deal, which covers residency, healthcare, pensions, mutual recognition of professional qualifications and other benefits could be extended to the 18,000 Norwegian nationals, 2,000 Icelandic nationals and 40 Liechtenstein nationals living in the UK, and the 15,000 UK nationals in Norway, 800 in Iceland and 60 in Liechtenstein.

EEA EFTA citizens are covered by free movement provisions through the EEA EFTA states’ membership of the EEA Agreement. This allows them to currently move to the UK and other EU states, and similarly UK citizens are currently able to move to the three EEA EFTA states.

Following their meeting earlier this week the UK and EEA EFTA countries issued the following joint-statement:

Officials from the EEA EFTA States (Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway) and the United Kingdom met on 12 February 2018 to discuss the agreement reached by the United Kingdom and the European Union on citizens’ rights in December 2017. Positive discussions on these issues took place at the meeting and the parties affirmed their desire to secure the status and protect the rights of UK nationals living in Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein and nationals of those countries living in the UK.