Answer given by President Juncker on behalf of the Commission
17.5.2018
On 23 March 2018, the European Council (Article 50) welcomed the Agreement reached on 19 March 2018[1] at the level of the Negotiators of the Commission and the United Kingdom Government on elements of the draft Withdrawal Agreement[2] covering citizens' rights, the financial settlement, a number of other withdrawal issues and the transition.
Citizens' rights are covered in Part Two of the draft Withdrawal Agreement, which also defines the rights of family members. Like the European Parliament, the Commission has, from the beginning of the negotiations with the United Kingdom, put a lot of emphasis on safeguarding the life choices and rights of EU-27 citizens in the United Kingdom and British citizens in the EU-27, after the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union.
In May 2017, the Commission published an Essential Principles Paper on Citizens' Rights[3], setting out basic principles on this matter, from the perspective of the EU-27. The situations referred to by the Honourable Member are not explicitly covered in this Paper.
- [1] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/publications/draft-agreement-withdrawal-united-kingdom-great-britain-and-northern-ireland-european-union-and-european-atomic-energy-community-0_en
- [2] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/sites/beta-political/files/draft_withdrawal_agreement.pdf
- [3] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/sites/beta-political/files/citizens-rights-essential-principles-draft-position-paper_en.pdf