May: EU citizens’ fate is a priority in Brexit
BRUSSELS — British Prime Minister Theresa May promised Thursday that EU citizens will not be immediately kicked out of Britain when it leaves the union and says their fate will be a top priority in Brexit negotiations — prompting guarded praise from other EU leaders at a tense time for the continent.
May’s proposals at an EU summit were a carefully timed gesture days after talks began on Britain’s departure. German Chancellor Angela Merkel called them “a good start.”
May laid out benchmarks for the rights of 3 million EU citizens living legally in Britain and how they should be shielded from excessive harm because of the divorce. She made it clear that Britain wants reciprocal measures for the 1.5 million British citizens living in the EU. The issue of citizens’ rights is especially sensitive in the Brexit talks.
No ‘cliff edge’ looming
Under May’s proposal, EU citizens with legal residence in the UK will not be asked to leave and will be offered a chance to regularize their situation after Brexit, a senior British official said.
“No one will face a cliff edge,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity since May made the proposal at a closed-door EU summit dinner.
Merkel welcomed May’s promises, but insisted that “there are, of course, many, many other issues.” She mentioned the bill that Britain will have to pay to leave and questions about how to deal with the border between Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland.
“It means we have lots left to do,” Merkel said.
Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern said May’s proposals are “a first step” but warned there are still many European citizens in Britain who would not be covered by the proposals. “We are now at the start of all this and we don’t know whether it will be a sprint or a marathon,” he said.
The Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, said there are “thousands of questions to ask” about May’s proposals.
Britain’s departure in 2019 will cause the EU to lose one of its biggest members and a global player, but the other EU nations were already looking at some of the spoils of the divorce. They will decide in November where the EU agencies currently based in Britain will move to on the continent, EU chief Donald Tusk announced.
The bloc’s medicines and banking agencies are now in London, and almost every EU nation wants one of the two agencies. On Thursday, the EU leaders agreed on procedures for a fair pick.
Russian sanctions
Discord over whether Britain’s exit process could still be reversed surfaced at the summit.
Tusk said when British friends asked him if he could imagine a way for Britain to remain part of the bloc, he told them: “The EU was built on dreams that seemed impossible to achieve. So who knows?”
“You may say I am a dreamer, but I’m not the only one,” Tusk added, quoting a lyric from John Lennon’s “Imagine.”
Also Thursday, the EU leaders agreed to extend sanctions against Russia over its actions in Ukraine, following a similar move by the United States this week.
Tusk tweeted Thursday while hosting an EU summit in Brussels: “Agreed. EU will extend economic sanctions against Russia” over its failure to implement measures promised in a peace agreement.