Tuition fee talks and EU-UK linking

On 21 October, the European Commission presented member states with the option of separating the European Union’s (EU) demand for domestic-rate tuition fees for EU students in the UK from the negotiation mandate ahead of the 20 November “reset” summit. Tuition fees have reportedly been one of the hardest-fought points of the reset negotiations, whilst the EU-UK linking agreement is reported to be done and the agri-food deal is close to completion.

Because the summit files are treated as a single package, the proposal also makes carbon market linking conditional on a tuition fee agreement that has yet to be reached.

The analysis sets out what the deferral means for the timing of a summit agreement, the implementation of linking, and the spread between UK Allowance (UKA) and European Union Allowance (EUA) prices.