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1 March 2020 2.00 h

Doubts over BREXIT

Now that the UK’s break with the EU is finally official, many questions still remain about the consequences of the country’s decision to leave the European Union, with the light at the end of the tunnel still some way off

The British have left the Eu­ro­pean Union, and de­spite the issue of Brexit dom­i­nat­ing pol­i­tics in the past few years, the com­plex­ity of the di­vorce process has caused a gen­eral feel­ing of in­com­pre­hen­sion and fa­tigue. Yet, the exit of the United King­dom is some­thing that can­not leave Eu­ro­peans in­dif­fer­ent, as they must also ask how Brexit will af­fect them and when this seem­ingly in­ter­minable saga will fi­nally be at an end.

What changes now?
Not much so far. The British no longer have any seats in EU in­sti­tu­tions, al­though in prac­ti­cal terms they con­tinue to be part of the bloc. In other words, the di­vorce pa­pers have been signed, but while agree­ment is reached over what type of re­la­tion­ship they want in the fu­ture, both par­ties will con­tinue more or less as usual, at least this year, until the um­bil­i­cal cord is de­fin­i­tively cut in 2021.
What should we keep an eye on?
The pub­lic and com­pa­nies will have to pay at­ten­tion over the next few months to how the talks on the fu­ture re­la­tion­ship go. That ne­go­ti­a­tion will in­volve de­cid­ing the new ties be­tween the EU and the UK in such spheres as trade, the move­ment of peo­ple, trans­port, ed­u­ca­tion, and se­cu­rity.
And they only have 11 months?
In prin­ci­ple, yes. Yet, the Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­sion, which is charged with ne­go­ti­at­ing the new agree­ment in the name of the EU’s mem­ber states, says it does not think it is fea­si­ble to get every­thing done in 2020, and so it is in favour of de­lay­ing the UK’s final exit. Yet, that is some­thing the Boris John­son gov­ern­ment will not coun­te­nance, as it does not square with its elec­toral pledge to com­plete the Brexit process as soon as pos­si­ble.
When do they have to de­cide on an ex­ten­sion?
Brus­sels and Lon­don have set July 1 as the date to eval­u­ate whether there is time to ne­go­ti­ate all of the is­sues. If both par­ties want it, they can then de­cide to post­pone the UK’s with­drawal for an­other year or two.
Will EU cit­i­zens liv­ing in the UK have to leave?
Not if they don’t want to. All EU cit­i­zens res­i­dent in the UK up to the end of 2020 (un­less the with­drawal is ex­tended) will keep the rights they have for the rest of their lives. That is laid down in the Brexit with­drawal agree­ment, which also lets fam­i­lies be re­united and gives the same rights to the chil­dren of these res­i­dents, even if born after 2021. Among the rights these cit­i­zens will keep is ac­cess to the health ser­vice, pen­sions, and other so­cial se­cu­rity ben­e­fits.
Will that be au­to­matic, or will they have to com­plete a spe­cial process?
To enjoy these rights, they will have to apply for res­i­dent’s sta­tus if they have lived for at least five years in the coun­try, or ’pre-res­i­dent’ sta­tus if they have lived there for less time. They will have to do this the first time they reach the five-year limit. They will not have to pay any­thing to do this.
And for British peo­ple in Cat­alo­nia?
The same. They will have the right to con­tinue liv­ing, study­ing and work­ing here as they have done until now. They will not have to com­plete any spe­cial process other than the usual ones they have had to do until now in order to re­side in Cata­lan ter­ri­tory.
And what about after the tran­si­tion?
In that case the res­i­dency con­di­tions could be dif­fer­ent. In the next few months, Lon­don and Brus­sels will have to reach agree­ment on what rights their cit­i­zens will have.
Will we have to apply for a visa to go to Lon­don? Will we have ac­cess to free in­ter­net and calls when over there?
At least until De­cem­ber 31, 2020, there will be no need for a visa and mo­bile roam­ing con­di­tions will re­main the same. From next year, every­thing will de­pend on what the EU and the UK ne­go­ti­ate.
Can you do an Eras­mus pro­gramme this year in Britain?
Yes. Until the end of 2020 there is still time to do an EU-funded pro­gramme in a British uni­ver­sity. Even those Eras­mus pro­grammes funded with the cur­rent EU bud­get that go over into 2021 will be al­lowed. After that every­thing will de­pend on the agree­ment on fu­ture re­la­tions that both par­ties reach.
Will Brexit af­fect qual­i­fi­ca­tions?
No, the UK is part of the Eu­ro­pean Higher Ed­u­ca­tion Area and the coun­try’s with­drawal from the EU will not mean any change in of­fi­cial uni­ver­sity qual­i­fi­ca­tions.
Will ex­tra­di­tions be pos­si­ble under the sys­tem of Eu­ro­pean war­rants?
For the rest of this year, yes. How­ever, after the tran­si­tion there is no guar­an­tee that the UK will con­tinue work­ing in this frame­work of ju­di­cial co­op­er­a­tion be­tween states.
North­ern Ire­land and Scot­land voted to re­main. Is there no way they can stay in­side the EU?
Not un­less they be­come in­de­pen­dent states or the UK au­thor­i­ties change their minds. Brexit has re­opened the de­bate on how these two ter­ri­to­ries fit within the UK. The Scot­tish gov­ern­ment has al­ready asked for an­other ref­er­en­dum on se­ces­sion, but so far the Boris John­son ex­ec­u­tive has re­fused. On the is­land of Ire­land there is a grow­ing de­bate on re­uni­fi­ca­tion due to con­cerns about the di­vi­sions that could be caused by Brexit, even though the with­drawal agree­ment guar­an­tees that there will never be a ’hard bor­der’ be­tween north and south.
What are the guar­an­tees that there will be no bor­der con­trols?
In the case that there is a de­fin­i­tive break in 2021 with­out any agree­ment reached, the UK has made a com­mit­ment that North­ern Ire­land will de facto re­main in­side the Eu­ro­pean Sin­gle Mar­ket, even if it leaves the cus­toms union. All goods that cross the bor­der with Ire­land will have to meet Eu­ro­pean stan­dards. How­ever, the su­per­vi­sion will not take place on the is­land, but at sea, which means British ports and air­ports will make sure that prod­ucts from North­ern Ire­land des­tined for the Eu­ro­pean Union con­tinue to com­ply with com­mu­nity reg­u­la­tions. This for­mula will allow North­ern Ire­land to take ad­van­tage of new trade agree­ments that Lon­don makes with coun­tries out­side the Eu­ro­pean Union. This was one of the British gov­ern­ment’s main Brexit aims.
Why is no hard bor­der im­por­tant?
The North­ern Ire­land peace agree­ment says there can be no phys­i­cal bor­der with Ire­land. Rein­tro­duc­ing bor­der con­trols could cause the con­flict to flare up again.
Is it sim­i­lar for Gibral­tar?
No. Gibral­tar is the UK’s other land bor­der with the Eu­ro­pean Union and after Brexit be­comes ef­fec­tive no spe­cial sta­tus for it is en­vis­aged, un­less a new agree­ment is reached.
Could we see bor­der con­trols in Gibral­tar?
Both par­ties will try to avoid that, but it will de­pend on the talks. Some 15,000 peo­ple, most from nearby areas with high un­em­ploy­ment, go to Gibral­tar every day from Spain to work thanks to the Eu­ro­pean Union’s laws guar­an­tee­ing free move­ment. The un­cer­tainty about what agree­ment on move­ment Lon­don and Brus­sels will reach and how it might af­fect the strate­gic en­clave is a cause for con­cern. Lon­don is de­ter­mined to ne­go­ti­ate fu­ture re­la­tions for all of its ter­ri­tory, Gibral­tar in­cluded.
What does Madrid say?
The Span­ish gov­ern­ment will have a promi­nent role in the talks that af­fect Gibral­tar, given its his­toric claim on the ter­ri­tory. The So­cial­ists threaten to veto the agree­ment if its ap­pli­ca­tion where Gibral­tar is con­cerned ap­pears to be detri­men­tal to Spain. To avoid things get­ting to that point, Pedro Sánchez’s ex­ec­u­tive has al­ready begun bi­lat­eral con­tacts with the Boris John­son gov­ern­ment to pre­pare the ground for these ne­go­ti­a­tions. For the mo­ment, Madrid has de­manded a re­la­tion­ship that is “close and fair”.
Could the UK go back on its de­ci­sion?
Tech­ni­cally, no. In the hy­po­thet­i­cal case that the UK de­cided not to go through with Brexit after all, it would have to apply for read­mis­sion to the Eu­ro­pean Union.
When will Brexit fi­nally be over?
On paper, at the end of 2020. How­ever, the sheer vol­ume and com­plex­ity of the ne­go­ti­a­tions will make it very dif­fi­cult to get every­thing done by next year’s dead­line. Dur­ing the di­vorce pro­ceed­ings there were a num­ber of post­pone­ments, which makes it pos­si­ble that the Brexit drama could still go on for some time yet.

fea­ture brexit

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