Today, 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:
o secures the rights of the three million EU citizens living here and the million British citizens living in the EU; and
o maintains the Common Travel Area with Ireland, which sets out both sides’ determination to avoid a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, while respecting the integrity of the UK Single Market.
· Since Monday the UK says it has secured a further change on citizens’ rights and eight crucial changes on Northern Ireland, addressing the concerns raised by the DUP about the risks of divergence between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom.
CITIZENS’ RIGHTS
· The PM has said that there needs to be reciprocal protections for British citizens living in the EU and for EU citizens living in the UK, and has said this is what the deal delivers.
· In the UK, EU citizens’ rights will be upheld by implementing the agreement into UK law, instead of continued EU law enforced by the EU courts, as the EU first asked for. The compulsory jurisdiction of the CJEU will have ended.
NORTHERN IRELAND
· The Common Travel Area with Ireland will be maintained.
· Everyone has pledged that there will be no hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland.