Theresa May proposes citizens’ rights deal to aid Brexit talks

Prospects for a speedy deal on key elements of the Brexit negotiations improved on Thursday night when the UK's prime minister Theresa May set out her country's proposals on "citizens rights" to fellow EU leaders at their Brussels summit.

Speaking at the leaders’ dinner, Ms May outlined the UK’s response to EU proposals on the rights of citizens in each other’s jurisdiction after Brexit. The issue is one of three priority topics in the “divorce” talks which need to see “substantial progress” by October if talks on trade are to begin. The other two are the Irish Border issues, and the British Brexit bill.

Ms May’s offer would appear likely to facilitate substantial progress on that issue.

She proposed that the three million EU citizens in Britain, if such rights are reciprocated to the 1.25 million UK citizens abroad, will acquire a special status after residing in the UK for five years, allowing them all the rights they currently enjoy. The proposed rights of their spouses and children are not clear, however. Those who have been residing in the UK for less than five years at the time the agreement comes into force will be allowed to stay up to five years and acquire such rights.

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Vexed issue

On the vexed issue of whether the UK would continue to allow the EU’s European Court of Justice to uphold such rights, Ms May is understood to have suggested that there are circumstances in which the UK would find that acceptable.

The offer, though the devil will be in the detail, bears a lot of similarities to that proposed by the EU’s negotiating team a fortnight ago, and there has been widespread speculation in Brussels that this, with a fair wind and political will on both sides, can fly.

Earlier, in the debate on internal and external security, the leaders accepted the "need" to launch "an ambitious and inclusive" new level of EU military co-operation. This will involve groups of member states collaborating on projects ranging from peacekeeping missions to defence research, under the so-called "enhanced co-operation" multi-speed architecture that the Lisbon Treaty created.

The leaders agreed that in three months they would review proposals for specific tasks.

Ireland’s neutrality

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar insisted on the margins of the meeting that such co-operation in the fight against terrorism is entirely compatible with Ireland's traditional neutrality.

“Co-operation around security and defence is changing,” he said. The threats that we face in the world are less about wars between countries, and more about threats created by terrorism, by extremism, and by cyber-attacks for example.

“And those areas are not areas in which we should be neutral. We should be very much involved in working with European partners to prevent cyber-attacks, to manage migration and to stand against terrorism.”

The Irish emphasis in the final declaration had been to insist on language that defined military policy in what might be termed a holistic way, that saw crisis management and civil interventions as well as military power as mutually supportive elements in the Union’s “diplomatic toolbox”.

Information-sharing

The leaders discussed stepping up co-operation, in the fight against terrorism, particularly information-sharing, and want to see internet companies doing more to remove dangerous material "automatically". Council president Donald Tusk said the EU was prepared to legislate on the issue if necessary.

Following dinner, the leaders met at 27 – without Ms May – to discuss how to relocate the EU institutions currently based in the UK, specifically the European Banking Agency and the European Medicines Agency, which Ireland is interested in.

Some 20 states are understood to be interested in competing for these agencies, and leaders agreed that they would be allocated under a new procedure in which the commission is asked to assess the “objective” capabilities of each applicant. Attempts at previous meetings by eastern member states to include in the objective criteria issues such as geographical distribution and low pay were rejected. Irish officials expressed satisfaction at the result; a decision is expected in the autumn.