May’s plan to safeguard rights of EU citizens living in Britain

LONDON: Prime Minister Theresa May unveiled a plan to protect the rights of EU citizens living in Britain, saying the government would work to offer them the same health, medical and educational benefits as British citizens.

An agreement on the post-Brexit rights of EU nationals is one of the easier issues to agree on, with Britain and the rest of the bloc wanting to provide assurances to millions of their citizens living abroad.

But reflecting the complexity of family relationships sprung from more than 40 years of EU membership, opposition politicians demanded clarity on what the changes meant for adult children of EU nationals, who had grown up in Britain but now lived abroad. And a major sticking point, which Brexit minister David Davis said at the weekend would be the row of the summer, was that Britain would not defer to rulings from the European Court of Justice – an institution the EU says must be involved.

The sides must also decide on a cutoff point. Brussels wants that to be when Britain leaves the EU, but May has offered a “window” – no earlier than her confirmation of withdrawal three months ago and no later than Brexit, in March 2019.

“I want to reassure people that under these plans, no EU citizen currently in the UK lawfully will be asked to leave at the point the UK leaves the EU. We want you to stay,” she said.

May made her pitch just hours after winning a deal to prop up her minority government with Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party, necessary to give her a better chance of passing laws to ease the path of Brexit during two years of talks.