Brexit: No News?
Brexit negotiations have been going on for what feels like a decade, but there’s little progress, or isn’t there?
British citizens in Germany have so far been left clueless as to what their status will be from January 1st ,2021 onwards. So far in most municipalities British citizens have been asked to register themselves at their responsible foreigner’s department. This has been possible mostly online. In return, the registrants receive a confirmation mail with the information that the foreigner’s department will get back to them as soon as they have any information.
Theoretically there are now two possible solutions to solve the pending status of UK-citizens. The negotiations could lead to an agreement of free movement of persons. Meaning, that there would not be much practical change for British citizens, and it would be comparable to what EU-citizens are legally seen as currently.
The other option is to view the issue through the lens of residential law. Which would in fact create the need for British citizens to receive residence titles based on for example their work in Germany, or their marital status (with a spouse who is an EU-citizen) etc.
It is not clear yet as to what approach the involved parties will agree upon, but it’s more than likely that the processing of any approach will take the local foreigner’s time and effort, especially during the time of a pandemic, where resources in public service are limited and slowed down.
Since there’s little that can be done without any hint on what will happen it is best to prepare for both scenarios and to collect all possibly relevant documents ahead of time so no time is lost or processes are unnecessarily dragged out by the need of fetching relevant documents.
What never hurts to have prepared in advance are the following documents:
- Residential registration
- Contract of employment (if applicable)
- University degree (in German translation, not all foreigner’s departments in Germany accept English documents)
- Marriage certificate (if applicable)
- Birth certificates of children (if applicable)
- Passport
If additional documents are needed, one has more time to gather those when negotiations come to an agreement. Once there is any news, we will inform you right away.
