Hello and welcome. My name is Sophia Bash and you're listening to the CER podcast. Today I'm talking to two of CER's own researches, Camino Motera-Martinez and Christian Odendale.

Camino works on justice and home affairs issues and Christian is our chief

economist and they are both calling in from the CES New Brussels office. Welcome to the podcast.

Hello. Hello. You two have co-authored a longer piece recently, what free movement means to Europe

and why it matters to Britain. Right. So in her first substantial Brexit speech a couple of

weeks ago, Theresa May said that Britain would not be seeking access to the single market

because London understands that for the EU the four freedoms are indivisible and because Britain seeks

control of migration. Camino, why will EU migration as a consequence of one of the four freedoms,

freedom of movement, still matter for Brexit negotiations?

It will matter and it will matter a lot because there are some 3 million European

citizens living in the UK and according to some estimates, 1.2 million Brits living abroad in the EU.

So obviously both the UK and Brussels will have to agree on what happens with those who are already living elsewhere

and what will happen with those who move after Brexit?

Because let's not forget that, as Theresa May herself said,

the UK is living the European Union, but it's not living in Europe.

Europe is still going to be its closest neighbor,

and obviously there will be a lot of people moving in both directions.

So it's very important for both parties to understand what migration means to the other

so that they can find a very good negotiating point to start Brexit talks on existing and

future rights of migrants.

And where do you see this conversation going?

So the conversation about existing and future rights of migrants,

...