EU reset threatened by student fees standoff

Britain is in a standoff with Brussels over a demand to cut university tuition fees for European students, in a row that threatens to scupper Keir Starmer’s planned EU reset.

- Kiran Stacey Policy editor

EU officials say European students should pay “home” fees of about £9,500 a year in England and Wales as part of the negotiations over a youth mobility scheme, rather than the higher international rate, which can rise above £60,000.

European students would also pay the domestic rate in Scotland, which is set at £1,820 a year, although most Scottish students qualify for free tuition. Fees for Irish students In Northern Ireland are generally capped at £4,855.

British negotiators say they have been blindsided by the demand, which they say was not mentioned in the framework agreement signed last year and would cost British universities an estimated £140m a year.

Sources say the disagreement has brought talks to a near standstill with little time left before a summit in Brussels in late June or early July. The prime minister is planning to use that summit to announce a series of agreements on trade and travel designed to bolster his argument that closer ties with the EU are needed to boost the UK’s economic growth. One said: “It is true that talks have stalled and that this is now the main issue on which both sides cannot agree.”

A British government spokesperson said: “Any final [youth mobility] scheme must be time-limited, capped and will be based on our existing youth mobility schemes, which do not include access to home tuition fee status.”

One British source described the idea of a reduction in tuition fees as a "non-starter".