After today, a lot of things, in fact, do not change. Even though we have now officially started the process of leaving, the UK still remains a member state: it still participates in the day-to-day decision-making of the system, it pays its bills. In this way, there’s nothing different from today than there was from yesterday. But, clearly, today means that we started the process that almost inevitably leads to the UK leaving the EU in 2 years’ time, which suggests that we are going to have a lot more focus on the negotiations that are going to start from this point forward.
In terms of that process, this is the day when the UK says: ‘We are doing it’. But then from that point, the EU also needs to decide what it is going to offer to the UK and, I think, that it is going to be the next big step in the next 3-4 weeks.
Negotiations
In terms of negotiations, there are going to be the 3 main stages. There is going to be a period that’s going to run up to about autumn of this year, which will be preparation. The commission who will run the negotiations for the EU side will release their ideas of how everything should work, possibly, on Friday. Then the heads of the other 27 governments need to reach an agreement on what they want to offer in that process, and then that needs to be agreed with the UK. All this will take several months.
It probably will only be at the end of the summer when the proper negotiations begin; those will run for about a year.
Then you have a period at the end of these 2 years, that will be taken up with getting everybody’s agreement. Thus, you probably need to have the approval of all of the member states (it could be possible that you can do it with just a majority of them). Nevertheless, all of them will have to be involved in the process. You will need to have the approval of the European Parliament and then the approval of the UK, which will take the form of a Parliamentary vote on whether they accept the deal, or leave without a deal.
There are these three stages of preparation, negotiation and ratification. In this way, any image you might have of them in 2 years’ time, locked in the room, trying to beat out the last details of the deal, is not a realistic one. That will come much sooner than that point because they need to have people’s approval by the two-year deadline.
Agreement
There’s a distinct possibility the agreement will not be reached. The UK, even with its letter today, has not been very clear about what it wants from the relationship; it talked in very vague terms and more interested in the things that it doesn’t want than the things it does want. It is possible that one of the other member states might cause difficulty because they have a different situation: an obvious example would be Ireland which is in a very different situation to that of all the other member states.
It could be that the European Parliament decides that it is going to try and get some concessions out of everybody, because its approval is needed. It also might be that the British government either cannot agree amongst itself what it wants, or cannot get the approval of the Parliament for its proposal.
If any of those things happen and we don’t have an agreement then, in two years’ time, the UK leaves without a deal. The failure to reach an agreement is not in itself a way of stopping the UK from leaving. You have two years to try and reach an agreement, and if you can’t, then you leave without one.
EU Nationals
Regarding the EU nationals’ rights in the UK, both sides tend to say that they are keen to protect the rights of the EU nationals in the UK and the UK nationals in the EU. Everyone is trying to find an agreement early on.
In any case, there will be some kind of an agreement in principle about these people. There are two other things to be considered. One is – do these nationals enjoy the rights that they currently enjoy? – and that is probably not the case, particularly in terms of access to benefits. The other is – are we going to kick these people out and make them return to their home countries? I think this is what everyone is talking about. The problem is, if the UK leaves without an agreement, then there would be an uncertainty, which would, in turn, leave a bad feeling between the partners, because then it would have to be somebody’s fault. That might then play into using these nationals as ‘bargaining chips’, to use this phrase that’s been going around recently. Even if we say that we have to think about people’s rights and their positions, I think this is not necessary the same as trying to extract some political advantage from them.
I think we already started feeling the effects of Brexit at the time of the referendum: a lot of EU nationals were reporting that the atmosphere had changed, that people weren’t as friendly or accommodating. It is not about the legal status, it is more about what might be acceptable to say to such people.
I think, in terms of when people might start to notice a difference in their legal rights will be at the point when the UK leaves the EU on the 29th of March 2019. Only at that point would you see anyone trying to change what these nationals can do or cannot do. To do it while the UK is still a member state, which it now is, probably causes more trouble than it is worth. At the moment, there will not be any change but, at some point, from two years on, everything will change quite a lot. The problem is that when you don’t know what might be, it is very hard to plan it.