We work to reduce barriers to professional mobility across Europe

Why a Cross-Border Services group?

The UK’s departure from the European Union erected many barriers to international trade with the UK’s nearest neighbours. Some of these barriers were long predicted, some became clear as soon as the transition period ended, and some of them no doubt have yet to be encountered.

The UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) and the UK-CH Services Mobility Agreement fall far short of meeting the needs of the vast numbers of companies and workers (both employed and independent) in the service sector, whose businesses and livelihoods now face serious obstacles as a result of the loss of free movement.

British citizens living in mainland Europe are particularly hard-hit by the prohibitions on delivering their existing services across European borders, as they had been able to do for their entire working lives until now, and on developing their businesses by tapping new European markets. Some British employees of companies based in the EU and EFTA could even be disadvantaged compared with all other third-country nationals.

The Cross-Border Services group was founded to address these issues and act as a cross-sector liaison between all those who are disadvantaged by the new work environment.

We are….

  • Forward-looking
    Brexit has happened; we’re not here to rehash old arguments.
  • Pragmatic
    We’re interested in the goal of improving professional mobility from the new starting point, but agnostic about how that is achieved.
  • Eclectic
    Our core team has members based in the UK and several EU and EFTA countries, working in a wide range of industries.
  • Broad-focused
    We look at mobility with a wide-angle lens; our interest is not only on EU countries, but also EEA and EFTA countries where British citizens’ mobility rights relied on their EU citizenship.

 

We are not…

  • Full-time campaigners
    We are all experienced professionals with many years of international work behind us, most of us run our own cross-border businesses, and we contribute to CBS in our spare time.
  • Party-political
    We come from all walks of life with varied political allegiances and none. What we have in common is our desire to restore the mobility we rely on, and we support anyone who shares that goal.
  • Extremists
    We make calm, rational, well-reasoned arguments aiming to persuade, not alienate.
  • Closed-minded
    We are open to any ideas and contacts that help us achieve our purpose.

Who we are

The Cross-Border Services group (which originally bore the provisional name of the UK-EU Cross-Border Services working group) was founded by Zoe Adams Green and Debbie Williams in September 2020. In addition to Zoe and Debbie, the core team members are Nick Gammon, Emma Gledhill, Jayne Hamilton and Kim Sanderson.

Our aim is to research, examine and draw awareness to the effects of the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union on the provision of cross-border services between the UK, EU and EFTA, including the rendering of services by British citizens resident in one EU/EFTA member state to clients in other EU/EFTA member states.

The members of CBS have expertise in aviation, IT, translation and interpreting, culture and media, sports, and tourism.

Core team

Zoe Adams Green MCIL CL

Zoe Adams Green lives in Rome with her Italian husband and their young son. Before moving to Italy, she spent 12 years in Spain and five years in Germany. As a result of her experiences of living and working in different EU member states, Zoe is well aware of the benefits of the freedom of movement that has been lost as a result of the 2016 referendum on the Withdrawal of the UK from the European Union.
 
Living in Spain at the time, Zoe joined Bremain in Spain in 2016 to campaign against the UK leaving the EU, soon becoming a member of the Bremain Council and their newsletter editor. She remained in this role until 2020, despite her move to Italy. In Italy, Zoe served on the Committee of British in Italy, also until 2020. Zoe has been a member of the Steering Committee of British in Europe, the largest coalition group of British citizens living and working in Europe, since 2018. British in Europe actively campaigns for the rights of UK citizens in the EU.
 
When not working, campaigning or researching, Zoe spends most of her time chasing her toddler. On the rare occasions that she does find time for herself, she can be seen pounding the streets of Rome in bizarre running gear whilst listening to extremely cheesy Europop.

Debbie Williams MBE

Debbie Williams is the founder of the award-winning group, Brexpats – Hear Our Voice and currently lives in Spain. Originally from Llanelli, Wales, Debbie has lived in Germany, Belgium and The Netherlands.

Debbie has participated in and provided expert input on citizen’s rights in committee hearings, select committee hearings and expert panels. She has presented to The Dutch Parliament, The European Parliament and The Spanish Ministry of Justice and has attended high level meetings in the European Commission and Westminster. Also, she has participated in round table events and embassy meetings in The Netherlands and Spain. She regularly engages with other groups, stakeholders, embassy officials and political representatives and is the co-editor of the book “In Limbo Too”.

Debbie is an aviation specialist, having worked for 4 companies in 8 different and diverse areas, including National Air Traffic Services and the Royal Air Force. Her hobbies include tennis, Pilates and reading.

Nick Gammon

Nick Gammon is an artist and photographer currently living in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He has exhibited in museums and galleries throughout Europe, was a Moores finalist and Artist in Residence to the City of Munich. As a photographer he has been published in numerous publications world-wide such as National Geographic, Geo Magazine, The Smithsonian, The Times and the Guardian. In particular, he regularly contributed to Marie Claire’s French edition for many years, when he lived in France.

Originally from the Mumbles in West Wales, he moved from London to Dingle in Ireland in 1991 and then to Biarritz in 2002 before arriving in Amsterdam in 2016. In addition to being part of the Cross-Border Services group, Nick is a branch officer of the Netherlands branch of the National Union of Journalists

 

Emma Gledhill FCIL FITI CL

Emma has been a professional translator for nearly 30 years, both independently and in-house, and is a Fellow of both the Chartered Institute of Linguists and the Institute of Translation and Interpreting. She is also a professional RYA/MCA Yachtmaster Offshore skipper and sailing instructor, working in Switzerland and Greece. Mobility therefore pervades every part of her professional life.

Having lived in Switzerland since 2000, she was unable to vote in the 2016 referendum, and has turned to voluntary work to do her bit – she is British in Europe’s representative in Switzerland, regularly engaging with the British embassy, and a founder member of the CIoL Brexit working party.

Emma lives up a Swiss alp in a Romansch-speaking village, with her partner, a Greek street cat and a Spanish rescue dog, and is enjoying learning and promoting the local minority language. She plays tenor saxophone in a big band and once reached no. 20 in the Swiss singles chart.

Dr Jayne Hamilton

Jayne is a multilingual freelance software developer and architect based in the North East of England. Over the last 12 years, her unique skill set has enabled her to win major contracts across Europe against fierce competition. Mobility is key to her livelihood.

Kim Sanderson FITI

Kim Sanderson works as a freelance translator. She lives in the North-East of England but her clients and colleagues are based throughout Europe. Kim also teaches translation to MA students of various nationalities at Durham University.

Kim worked as an au pair in Paris before studying languages in the UK. During her degree she studied in the French overseas department of Réunion and worked near Munich, assisted by the Erasmus exchange scheme. Her partner spent a year studying electrical engineering in France through the same scheme, and she’d love their two teenage children to have similar opportunities.

In recent years, Kim has campaigned to retain closer ties with the EU as part of North East for Europe. She uses the editing and proofreading skills gained from her translating work to draft and edit documents for Cross Border Services. Kim also writes and edits articles for North East Bylines.

In her leisure time, Kim enjoys the (originally Scandinavian) sport of orienteering.