At the end of last week we heard the welcome news that the
Prime Minister had reached an agreement on the first phase of negotiations for
the United Kingdom to leave the European Union.
On Friday the UK and EU negotiating teams issued a joint
report on the progress they have made on the three areas covered in the first
phase of negotiations. The President of
the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, has agreed that this report
represents sufficient progress and that we should now move on to the talks
about our future partnership.
As a result, Donald Tusk, the President of the EU Council,
has recommended that the December Council allows the next stage of negotiations
to proceed and that there should be quick progress on agreeing an
implementation period.
The agreement on Phase One of the negotiations secures the
rights of the three million EU citizens living here and the million British
citizens living in the EU, represents a fair settlement of the accounts and maintains
the Common Travel Area with Ireland, which has operated since the 1920s, and
sets out both sides’ determination to avoid a hard border between Northern
Ireland and Ireland, while respecting the integrity of the UK Single Market.
The round of negotiations that has just finished has also
given us a number of concessions where the EU has backed down on positions they
previously held at the beginning of the talks.
For example, the EU have accepted that we will carry out
systematic criminality checks and will ask individuals to disclose previous
criminality when they apply for visa documentation. Any EU nationals that
commit crime after we leave will be subject to UK laws.
The EU have also accepted that future spouses from the EU will be subject to the UK
immigration law provisions that apply to non-EU spouses currently.
In terms of monetary obligations, we have also reached an
agreement that the UK will honour our commitments to the end of the budget
period, but have crucially secured the rebate on these payments as well as
other adjustments that will minimise our bill. We expect the settlement to come
in significantly below many of the EU’s initial estimates. This will be paid as
and when the commitments are due and are dependent on a broader agreement on
our future partnership, and is a significant change to the EU’s previous
position, which was that the UK should pay in full the obligations resulting
from the whole period of its membership; they estimated this at 75b Euro.
I have always thought moving to the second phase of
negotiations was of crucial importance, as his contains the real ‘meat’ of the
deal allowing us to look at the implementation period and final trading
agreements.
The EU had stipulated that we could not move on to phase two
of negotiations until we had made progress on the citizenship status of current
EU citizens living in the UK, the ‘divorce bill’ and the Irish Border, which we
have now done. I believe our current situation is a reasonable compromise that
will now allow us to get on the really important stuff in phase two. The EU has
said previously that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed and this
certainly continues to be the spirit of the negotiations!
My team and I are here to serve the whole constituency and
work hard to make a real difference to the lives of everyone needing support.
The office is open to the public Monday – Friday 10.00am – 4.00pm (no
appointment necessary). If there is an issue you would like my assistance on
then please, either visit the office or contact me on either 01726 829379 or
office@stevedouble.org.uk. Additionally, I hold regular, appointment only,
advice surgeries across the constituency. Dates of these can be found at:
www.stevedouble.org.uk/events
