British nationals living in Berlin have been reassured that an urgent registration process to secure legal status will be in place for them in the event of the UK leaving the EU with no deal.
Worried Britons who attended a meeting hosted by the British embassy said they felt relief that the state authorities had been able to go further than the European commission, whose no-deal planning announced this week made them feel abandoned.
There are an estimated 100,000 Britons living in Germany, the majority of them working, but they fear they will be treated as third-country nationals after Brexit, last in the queue for jobs after Germans and EU nationals, as is the legal norm for people from outside the bloc who apply for work.
Berlin recently overtook North Rhine-Westphalia as the state with the most UK nationals with 18,000, the ambassador said in his opening remarks.
Engelhard Mazanke, the head of the foreigners registration office at the Berlin state office for citizens, told Britons that he could not say what kind of residence status they would get when the UK leaves the EU, or what documents would be required.
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