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APPLICATION OF NATIONALITY BILL TO UK CITIZENS WORKING IN COMMUNITY INSTITUTIONS
Note by European Community Department (Internal)
1.
The position of British people working in the European Community institutions is different from that of businessmen or people working in other international organisations and we believe that there is a strong case for treating them in the same way as crown servants.
3.
There can be no doubt that British people working in the Community institutions are engaged in work of considerable and direct importance to this country. In particular, they are actively engaged in advising on and drafting legislation which will directly apply in the UK. This distinguishes their case from that of people
working in other international organisations.
3.
Some of those working in the Community institutions will be Crown servants and will, as such, be covered by the provisions for Crown servants. This makes it all the more desirable that their colleagues who are not Crown servants should get the same treatment.
4.
Aside from these general arguments, there are practical reasons for treating British people in the European Community institutions like Crown servants. It is an important aim of our European Community policy agreed by Ministers, to improve British representation in the Community institutions in terms of numbers and levels of Britons employed and to promote better links between them and our representatives in Brussels. This has a major part to play in the context of achieving our wider objectives in the Community. These aims will be made more difficult to achieve if some British staff come to feel that they have been unfairly treated in the Nationality Legislation, as they certainly will if they are treated worse than Crown servants. The Civil Service Department, whose responsibility this is, are aware of the problems and will be recommending to Lord Soames that he should write to the Home Secretary about it.
5.
In the light of these arguments our recommendation is that British people working in the European Community institutions should be treated in the same way as Crown servants. We are informed that any such provision would be politically unacceptable to the Home Secretary and that to press for it would be likely to weaken our ability to attain our other objectives in relation to the Bill. The Secretary of State may nevertheless wish to give some weight to the point in the context of our general European policy. Even if it is accepted that it cannot be pursued now in relation to the draft bill, the Secretary of State' may feel that the Home Secretary should be made aware of it.
If so, he might include a sentence in the letter on the following lines:
'I am particularly concerned about the position of British people working in the European Community institutions and I fear that treating them less well than Crown servants, as you propose, will make it more difficult to achieve our aims, important in the context of our Europe an policy, of improving recruitment and promoting better links with this important group of expatriates.
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