Turkish nationals could be losing interest in the Ankara Agreement visa route, new Home Office figures suggest
Figures reveal most applicants from Turkey are rejected but that interest in worker visa is waning
A free visa scheme by Turkish citizens wanting to work in the UK is becoming less popular, government figures suggest.Under European Union rules, Turkish nationals are entitled to bypass all existing visa regulations and set up a business in the UK.
The arrangement, popularly known as the Ankara Agreement, has proved popular with people wanting to start a new life in Britain because the Home Office charges no fee to apply.
But applications for the scheme have been steadily falling since the coalition government came to office four years ago promising to crack down on immigration.
Fewer than 800 people are expected to apply in 2014, down from a peak of over a thousand in 2010.
The figures are a rare piece of good news for supporters of the coalition’s immigration policy, which came under fire last week when it emerged migration to Britain had increased again.
Net migration – which measures the number of people coming to live here minus the number of people going to live abroad – rose to 243,000 in the past year, more than twice the 100,000 target the government had promised to reach by 2015.
MOST TURKISH APPLICANTS REJECTED
The figures, which Londra Gazete obtained through a request under the Freedom of Information Act, show the Home Office approved three quarters of Ankara Agreement applications overall.
But they also showed location was a large factor in whether they were successful: nearly two-thirds of rejected business applications came from Turkey.
The majority – 56% – of the nearly 700 people who applied at the British Consulate in Istanbul over the last ten years were ultimately rejected by the Home Office, while just 5% of UK-based applicants were turned away.
Lawyers familiar with the Ankara Agreement told Londra Gazete that the application numbers may have plateaued after peaking in 2010 because a successful legal challenge meant thousands of Turkish applications kept waiting until 2008 suddenly had to be processed.
