Policy Background European Citizens Voting and Candidacy Eligibility
At present, citizens of European Union (EU) Member States are automatically granted voting and candidacy rights in local elections, Northern Ireland Assembly elections and in Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) elections, by virtue of being EU citizens. The rights in respect of local elections were granted as a consequence of the UK’s membership of the EU and were given effect by domestic legislation in 1995, following a 1994 Directive of the Council of European Communities which required Member States to allow EU residents to vote and stand in local elections. The rights granted to European citizens in the United Kingdom were therefore reciprocated so that UK citizens living in all EU Member States were also granted local voting and candidacy rights in the respective countries. Since these rights were granted on the basis of freedom of movement, no immigration-based eligibility criteria was attached to the grant of these rights in UK domestic law.
	The UK left the EU on the 31st January 2020 and the Implementation Period ended at 11pm on 31 December 2020. Now that the UK has left the EU, and with the ending of free movement and introduction of the new points-based immigration system in the Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Act 2020, the legal basis for an automatic grant of voting and candidacy rights to European citizens no longer exists. Correspondingly, individual EU Member States are now able to set their own rules for local voting rights with reference to resident UK citizens. Some EU Member States allow non-EU third country nationals to vote and stand (subject to minimum residency requirements); others do not.
	The UK Government has sought agreements with EU Member States that will enable UK nationals living in those countries to vote and stand in their local elections in return for local voting and candidacy rights for citizens of these countries living in the UK. Voting and candidacy rights agreements with Spain, Portugal, Luxembourg and Poland have already been agreed.
	As a result of this Act, EU citizens who have been living in the UK since before the end of the Implementation Period will retain their local voting and candidacy rights in England and Northern Ireland, provided they hold lawful immigration status, regardless of whether they are citizens of Member States with which the UK has voting and candidacy rights agreements. For EU citizens who arrived in the UK after this point, voting and candidacy rights in England and Northern Ireland will be based on the principle of a mutual grant of rights, through agreements with the respective EU Member States. The Act does not make changes to devolved elections or elected posts in Scotland or Wales.
	These changes will not affect the voting and candidacy rights of Irish citizens, whose rights exist independently of the Republic of Ireland’s membership of the EU and long predate the UK’s membership. The rights of qualifying Commonwealth citizens will also not be changed by these measures. Citizens of Malta and Cyprus - which are both EU Member States and Commonwealth countries - will retain voting rights as Commonwealth citizens. In the event that Cyprus or Malta entered into a voting and candidacy rights treaty with the UK, Maltese and Cypriot citizens would benefit from the lower threshold for candidacy rights (e.g., any form of leave to remain as applies to ‘qualifying EU citizens’) whilst retaining all the other voting and candidacy rights granted to them as Commonwealth citizens.
	These changes will apply to all UK elections and referendums which use the local election franchise and are reserved to the UK Government. They will also apply to Police and Crime Commissioner Elections in England and Wales, and to ward elections for Common Councillors in the City of London. This means that the changes will not affect any elections or referendums in Scotland or Wales for which responsibility is devolved.