The European Commission (kind of the permanent civil service of the European Union) has proposed that the European Council (basically a group of EU heads of state) opens negotiations with the United Kingdom on a youth mobility plan.

This would be four years for 18-30s from the EU and the UK to spend in another country – unlike visa schemes this would not be tied to a particular purpose (work, study, travel), there would be no quota, and the plans would allow young people a taste of the freedoms everyone enjoyed just four short years ago. All you would need would be a travel document, sickness insurance, and a means of subsistence.

Apparently the UK has reached out to a number of EU member states on this issue – which will be a surprise to many – but the EU is keen to see something that covers the whole bloc. It’s surprisingly bold in scope, and offers two ideas in particular that would make the ears of higher education providers prick up.

The first is equilateral access to training markets. UK universities would be able to employ European staff for up to four years without visa sponsorship, something that would allow for a lot more researcher mobility. While this may not be good news for young UK domiciled researchers, who would once again be competing with their EU counterparts for sector jobs – this is a bilateral agreement that would open up other opportunities in Europe. Given the constrained timescale of many research projects this could be a huge deal for research performing organisations who need to bring world class staff in micro-niche areas in to teams at speed.

The second idea would give many providers pause – the return of home fees for EU students. Sector data shows a significant drop in EU student recruitment since the referendum, accelerating after 2020 when EU students started having to pay international fees, and lost access to the loan system available to home students. The UK system is comparatively expensive by global standards, so a reduction would be great news for ambitious young EU citizens looking to study in the UK. However, it is difficult to imagine many universities jumping at the chance to lose international fee income right at the moment – especially as the asian and african markets that have driven so much recent growth are showing signs of instability.

The agreement would also seek to set UK visa fees and health charges to a level that is “neither disproportionate nor expensive”, while scrapping these entirely for young people on the proposed scheme. There would also be softening of rules around traineeships and internships.

In return the UK would get something that is not quite as good as the old freedom of mobility – there’d be no intra-EU rights (so you’d have to specify and agree with a particular country rather than travel between countries), and there’d be the time limit on the whole thing.

Is this going to actually happen? The Scottish government has long expressed an interest in restoring freedoms like this as a stepping stone to rejoining the European Union. There have also been noises from Sadiq Khan in London about a youth mobility scheme. But from Westminster, under the current government, there would be unlikely to be appetite for such an agreement.