The EU wants to dictate what rights EU citizens will have in Great Britain after Brexit. Wouldn’t you think that the UK should decide what rights foreigners will have in their own country? If it’s indeed their own country.
The European Parliament on Monday set itself on a collision course with Britain, making a damning assessment of British proposals on EU citizens’ rights after the U.K. leaves the European Union.
The legislature indicated it would be using its power of veto on the negotiations if Britain did not become more lenient on the rights of EU citizens living in the country, a further indication of how tough the two-year negotiations are expected to become.
In a letter Monday to EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier, the group said EU citizens in Britain would be looking at “nothing less than relegation to second-class status,” adding that the U.K. proposals made on June 26 do not “respect the principles of reciprocity, symmetry and non-discrimination.”
Citizens’ rights in each other’s nations are considered the first issue that both sides must settle.
“It is clear we will not approve any deal which diminishes the rights of EU citizens in the U.K. or U.K. citizens in the EU,” Guy Verhofstadt, the EU Parliament’s chief Brexit official, told the AP.
Via the AP