The European Union has laid out its guidelines (known officially as supplementary directives) for the transition period after the UK formally leaves it, presumably in March next year.

This is just the start of the negotiations - this is the agreed position of the other 27 member states.

It's quite a dense, legalistic document, so Reality Check has pulled out some of the more important sections.

This is a bit of a warning shot. The guidelines begin with several paragraphs reminding us of what's been agreed so far, and emphasise that those agreements have to be respected if further progress is to be made.

One example: the EU believes there was an understanding that the transition period would maintain the status quo - in other words, all existing rules, regulations and arrangements would continue to operate.

But the UK is now seeking some exceptions, and that will complicate matters. The government hopes a deal on the transition can be completed in March, but there's no guarantee that will happen.

Irish border alert - don't think that you've heard the last of it. The language used in the December agreement was a fudge, and it will be difficult to translate into a legal text.

Remember, the UK pledged that - if all else failed - it would maintain full alignment with those rules of the single market and the customs union that affected the border.

The EU isn't sure how that can be done if the UK insists on leaving the single market and the customs union.

There are various legal quirks to be found in small territories around the edges of the EU, but the challenge in Ireland is of a different scale. Creative solutions are required.

Brexit: European Commission receives mandate to begin negotiations with the United Kingdom on transitional arrangements

Brussels, 29 January 2018

The European Commission welcomes today's decision by the General Affairs Council (Article 50) to allow negotiations to begin on possible transitional arrangements following the United Kingdom's orderly withdrawal from the European Union.

These negotiating directives – which supplement the negotiating directives from May 2017 and were based on the Commission's Recommendation of 20 December 2017 – set out additional details on possible transitional arrangements. These include, in particular, the following:

There will be no "cherry picking": The United Kingdom will continue to participate in the Customs Union and the Single Market (with all four freedoms). The Union acquis will continue to apply in full to and in the United Kingdom as if it were a Member State. As a result, the United Kingdom should remain bound by the obligations stemming from agreements with third countries. Any changes made to the acquis during this time should automatically apply to the United Kingdom.
All existing Union regulatory, budgetary, supervisory, judiciary and enforcement instruments and structures will apply, including the competence of the Court of Justice of the European Union.
The United Kingdom will be a third country as of 30 March 2019. It will, therefore, no longer be represented in Union institutions, agencies, bodies and offices.
The transition period needs to be clearly defined and precisely limited in time. It should not last beyond 31 December 2020. Consequently, the provisions on citizens' rights in the Withdrawal Agreement should apply as of the end of the transition period.

Today's Negotiating Directives also recall the need to translate into legal terms the results of the first phase of the negotiations, as outlined in the Commission's Communication and Joint Report. It underlines that work needs to be completed on all withdrawal issues, including those not yet addressed in the first phase, such as the overall governance of the Withdrawal Agreement and substantive issues such as intellectual property rights, protection of personal data and customs-related matters needed for the UK's orderly withdrawal from the EU.

Next steps

The Commission will publish in due course a draft legal text of the Withdrawal Agreement, of which transitional arrangements form part. The overall Article 50 Agreement will need to be concluded by the Council (Article 50), the European Parliament and the United Kingdom according to its own constitutional requirements.

Background

On 8 December 2017, the European Commission recommended to the European Council (Art 50) to conclude that sufficient progress has been made in the first phase of the Article 50 negotiations with the UK. On 15 December, the leaders of the EU27 confirmed that sufficient progress had been achieved on citizen's rights, Ireland and the financial settlement, and adopted guidelines to move to the second phase of the negotiations. This also follows a resolution on 13 December by the European Parliament confirming that sufficient progress has been made. On 20 December, the European Commission sent a Recommendation to the Council (Art 50) to begin discussions on the next phase of the orderly withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union.

The European Council (Art 50) guidelines of 29 April 2017 as well as the general principles and the procedural arrangements for the conduct of the negotiations established in the Council negotiating directives of 22 May 2017 continue to apply in their entirety to this phase of the negotiations.

olle wrote:

Will uk people enter rest of EU as EU citizen or will they be considered 3rd country?

Arion640 wrote:

Dutchy wrote:

olle wrote:

Will uk people enter rest of EU as EU citizen or will they be considered 3rd country?

Hard Brexit --> non EU citizen, long lines, visa perhaps?

Non EU citizen - yes
Long lines - potentially, depending on how busy the airport is.

Visa - certainly not, unless you want to sign a death sentence on the heavily tourist dependent economies like most of spain, greece and Portugal. You know yourself, visas will not happen, if that's the case, your probably going to need a visa at the irish border, which ireland do not want.

Dutchy wrote:

olle wrote:

Will uk people enter rest of EU as EU citizen or will they be considered 3rd country?

Hard Brexit --> non EU citizen, long lines, visa perhaps?

Dutchy wrote:

Arion640 wrote:

Dutchy wrote:

Hard Brexit --> non EU citizen, long lines, visa perhaps?

Non EU citizen - yes
Long lines - potentially, depending on how busy the airport is.

Visa - certainly not, unless you want to sign a death sentence on the heavily tourist dependent economies like most of spain, greece and Portugal. You know yourself, visas will not happen, if that's the case, your probably going to need a visa at the irish border, which ireland do not want.

I do not think (hope), a hard Brexit will happen, they can't be that stupid.

Dutchy wrote:

Arion640 wrote:

Dutchy wrote:

Hard Brexit --> non EU citizen, long lines, visa perhaps?

Non EU citizen - yes
Long lines - potentially, depending on how busy the airport is.

Visa - certainly not, unless you want to sign a death sentence on the heavily tourist dependent economies like most of spain, greece and Portugal. You know yourself, visas will not happen, if that's the case, your probably going to need a visa at the irish border, which ireland do not want.

I do not think (hope), a hard Brexit will happen, they can't be that stupid.

EU ministers, who approved the new negotiating directives at a meeting on Monday of the General Affairs Council, also portrayed the EU terms of the transition as effectively non-negotiable.

Appearing with Barnier at the news conference because her country currently holds the EU’s rotating presidency, Bulgarian Foreign Minister Ekaterina Zaharieva pointedly said: “The U.K. will no longer participate in the institutions and decision-making in the EU.”

Another senior EU official said neither Barnier nor the U.K. were given any wiggle room.

“We gave Michel Barnier today a mandate to explain rather than to negotiate,” the minister said. “On transition, it isn’t really a negotiation.”

par13del wrote:

Most of the world outside of the EU know about and use visas, indeed many EU citizens who travel outside of the EU have used them before, why is this such a big deal?

UltimoTiger777 wrote:

Britain and a number of other EU states (such as France) abolished visa controls a looooooooooooooooooooooong time ago, before the EU (or European Coal and Steel Community as it was) even existed.

JJJ wrote:

UltimoTiger777 wrote:

Britain and a number of other EU states (such as France) abolished visa controls a looooooooooooooooooooooong time ago, before the EU (or European Coal and Steel Community as it was) even existed.

Null and void now.

You can't deal with individual countries but with the EU as a whole so you can't have visa free travel with France but not with, say, Poland.

JJJ wrote:

You can't deal with individual countries but with the EU as a whole so you can't have visa free travel with France but not with, say, Poland.

L410Turbolet wrote:

JJJ wrote:

You can't deal with individual countries but with the EU as a whole so you can't have visa free travel with France but not with, say, Poland.

Of course you can. It's a one-way street. States outside the EU can choose whatever visa regime they want towards individual EU states, the catch is that it doesn't work the other way around because of Schengen.

JJJ wrote:

We're talking about Brits being able to travel to the EU. You can't get that through individual countries.

par13del wrote:

JJJ wrote:

We're talking about Brits being able to travel to the EU. You can't get that through individual countries.

In the words of a certain politician, the Brits are leaving, why would the EU want them to visit.

par13del wrote:

JJJ wrote:

We're talking about Brits being able to travel to the EU. You can't get that through individual countries.

In the words of a certain politician, the Brits are leaving, why would the EU want them to visit.

Arion640 wrote:

par13del wrote:

JJJ wrote:

We're talking about Brits being able to travel to the EU. You can't get that through individual countries.

In the words of a certain politician, the Brits are leaving, why would the EU want them to visit.

I just laughed at this.

So you can get into lots of countries with an EU passport without a visa. Why would they impose them on UK passports even though countries like Greece, Spain etc are begging to take tourists money.

olle wrote:

Arion640 wrote:

par13del wrote:

In the words of a certain politician, the Brits are leaving, why would the EU want them to visit.

I just laughed at this.

So you can get into lots of countries with an EU passport without a visa. Why would they impose them on UK passports even though countries like Greece, Spain etc are begging to take tourists money.

There will be no VISA between UK and EU. What will be is ETIAS that is a registration end precheck for a few €.

par13del wrote:

Funny thing is, even if the beat down works and the citizens fall in line with the politicians and just throw their hands up and accept whatever the EU demands

and stay in the EU however the EU wants or accepts them to stay,

the UK will be worse off than they were prior to the vote and article 50.

I guess when those economic realities hit they can always blame that on the delusion of the millions who voted leave and hold the politicians who secured the best deal that they could as heroes.

L410Turbolet wrote:

JJJ wrote:

You can't deal with individual countries but with the EU as a whole so you can't have visa free travel with France but not with, say, Poland.

Of course you can. It's a one-way street. States outside the EU can choose whatever visa regime they want towards individual EU states, the catch is that it doesn't work the other way around because of Schengen.

tommy1808 wrote:

L410Turbolet wrote:

JJJ wrote:

You can't deal with individual countries but with the EU as a whole so you can't have visa free travel with France but not with, say, Poland.

Of course you can. It's a one-way street. States outside the EU can choose whatever visa regime they want towards individual EU states, the catch is that it doesn't work the other way around because of Schengen.

3rd countries outside the EU can do such as much as they can negotiate different visa rules for people from different US states.

Best regards
Thomas

WildcatYXU wrote:

Are you sure? This list https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_Waiver_Program is missing several EU27 member countries. One of them is even a Schengen country.
But yes, who cares about those eastern Europeans anyway...

par13del wrote:

Well the civil service and the DC government of the day only have themselves to blame for (a) Project Fear (b) The citizen lack of faith in their projections.
Now since the civil service did not turn over when DC left, one has to assume that the same folks who generated and embellished project fear numbers to convince the folks to vote stay are the same ones working on the numbers now.

As for Rees-Mogg, I still have to look for the first part of this debate that preceded his response
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUKjTPPcOdQ

ElPistolero wrote:

That citizens lack faith in the Government and the Civil Service is probably more attributable to Brexiteer attacks on those institutions, than to anything the Government or Civil Service has done. Over the past year, Brexiteers have attacked:

- The independent judiciary ("enemies of the people")
- MPs ("traitors")
- The House of Lords
- The Civil Service

And those are just the Government institutions. MNCs, Banks, the CBI etc have also been subjected to the same attacks. Easy to forget that it will be the "experts", the "elite", the bureaucrats and the captains of industry who will be critical for "success"/damage limitation going forward. Generally a bad idea to bite the hand that feeds you. If these highly educated/skilled folk/"experts" decide they've had enough and step away from the wheel, who's going to do their job?

LAH1 wrote:

ElPistolero wrote:

That citizens lack faith in the Government and the Civil Service is probably more attributable to Brexiteer attacks on those institutions, than to anything the Government or Civil Service has done. Over the past year, Brexiteers have attacked:

- The independent judiciary ("enemies of the people")
- MPs ("traitors")
- The House of Lords
- The Civil Service

And those are just the Government institutions. MNCs, Banks, the CBI etc have also been subjected to the same attacks. Easy to forget that it will be the "experts", the "elite", the bureaucrats and the captains of industry who will be critical for "success"/damage limitation going forward. Generally a bad idea to bite the hand that feeds you. If these highly educated/skilled folk/"experts" decide they've had enough and step away from the wheel, who's going to do their job?

I think it's more true to say that many citizens lost faith in those institutions before the referendum which, in many cases, caused the vote to swing the way it did. It was an opportunity for those who felt they had no voice to raise them. But that is an opinion that has been mentioned here many times already.

ElPistolero wrote:

That citizens lack faith in the Government and the Civil Service is probably more attributable to Brexiteer attacks on those institutions, than to anything the Government or Civil Service has done. Over the past year, Brexiteers have attacked:

- The independent judiciary ("enemies of the people")
- MPs ("traitors")
- The House of Lords
- The Civil Service

And those are just the Government institutions. MNCs, Banks, the CBI etc have also been subjected to the same attacks. Easy to forget that it will be the "experts", the "elite", the bureaucrats and the captains of industry who will be critical for "success"/damage limitation going forward. Generally a bad idea to bite the hand that feeds you. If these highly educated/skilled folk/"experts" decide they've had enough and step away from the wheel, who's going to do their job?

par13del wrote:

I would think that the citizens lack of faith is due to the overwhelming chorus from those who say that: 1. Millions did not know what they were voting for
and 2: Millions expected to leave the EU and everything would continue as is with no downturn, change or live, operations, etc etc etc.
Project Fear also had an opposite side.

Facts are that when and if the UK leaves the EU there will be an economic hit, the primary difference between the Leave and the Remain side is that one side believes that the UK can live, survive and even thrive outside of the EU and are willing to take an economic hit to achieve their independence, the other side does not share that view.

The main failing right now is that the conflict between the sides is hurting the UK. A UK outside of the EU will be a competitor to the EU, the EU knows this and are working to eliminate the competition, the amount of the competition is not as relevant as the fact that the competition exist, as we have all seen the economic impact of the UK on the EU is minimal, so it has to be about principle. Even the hole in the EU budget seems to be no issue now, one has to wonder if all and sundry have seen the commitment that the UK government has made to keep the EU whole and for how long. All funds expended to keep the EU hole are less funds to establish the UK and make its independence a success, funds are not finite.

Rebates are gone, thus the UK is already worse off than before the trigger of article 50, the rest of the story is how much more before they even get to negotiations outside of the EU.

ElPistolero wrote:

Perhaps. Or they're losing faith in government because it serves as a convenient proxy for their own lack of due diligence or failure to think things through. It's an easy target for people who already have a propensity for blaming others (Eurocrats, immigrants etc).

ElPistolero wrote:

I don't disagree either with your characterization of remainers and leavers although I will ask this question: if Brexit results in job redundancies

ElPistolero wrote:

Remainers and leavers are different (indeed research shows that these are becoming important social identities). Perhaps it's more accurate to say that Leavers are okay with an economic hit that they think (perhaps reflecting their intellectual acuity) won't affect them personally, while Remainers realize that the economic hit may well affect them personally.

ElPistolero wrote:

And a deregulated UK a la the Rees-Mogg/Minford model, with unilateral free trade, will wipe out most, if not all of, the UK's manufacturing base, so you can take that competition off the table.

ElPistolero wrote:

What we know definitely won't happen is a heavily deregulated UK with EU market access (which is what this is all about). In any event, it's moot - many multinational trading companies already apply the most stringent regulatory standards (in this case the EUs) to maintain flexibility. Weaker U.K. regulations are unlikely to change that.

seahawk wrote:

The problem is that the UK does not know what it wants, at the moments it wants impossible things like: We won´t be part of any customs union, the border to Ireland will be fully open. The big mistake was to not go for the hard Brexit. No compromise with the EU and no future relationship. This could be achieved today and the UK could be free to find better partners on the global scale.

par13del wrote:

Unfortunately, most fail to realize that, many companies in the EU trade outside of the EU and they have to meet different standards, they do so every day without loosing millions of dollars, loosing staff, productive hours, sky not falling, etc etc etc, think we can all agree that when one goes into battle nothing is sacred and the first casualty is always the truth..

tommy1808 wrote:

Whatever standards the UK is going to set for itself, unless they want to damage the economy on purpose they may very well just write "paste EU/US regulations here".

Best regards
Thomas

LJ wrote:

Meanwhile a Dutch judge ruled today that the European Court of Justice must look at the question whether a British citizen living in The Netherlands prior to the Brexit vote should be considerd an European citizen. A group of British citizens living in Amsterdam argue that whilst they have a British passport, this doesn't mean they aren't a an European citizen, despite the fcat that the UK opted to leave the EU. The Dutch government agrued that it's not up to the Courts to decide if British citizens living in the EU prior to the Brexit are "European citizens" or not, but that this should be established during negociations. As such the matter shoudl not go to the ECJ. However, the Dutch State lost and now the ECJ must look at it.


https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/feb/07/british-group-wins-right-to-take-brexit-case-to-european-court

tommy1808 wrote:

Whatever standards the UK is going to set for itself, unless they want to damage the economy on purpose they may very well just write "paste EU/US regulations here".

Best regards
Thomas

par13del wrote:

Which is fine, based on the foundations of the EU, I think the judge ruled correctly. Now we will see whether the ECJ will make its determination independent of the current negotiations. I suspect the ruling will take some time which will coincidentally occur after the Brexit negotiations are completed.However, they may be well politically connected within the current UK government that they will see the UK pay additional funds to accommodate such cases throughout the EU, after all, it all comes down to money.

par13del wrote:

Hopefully those UK citizens will take a page out of the book of their country men in the UK and go get passports from other EU member countries, just to be sure, anything is fair game in negotiations.

par13del wrote:

Facts are that when and if the UK leaves the EU there will be an economic hit, the primary difference between the Leave and the Remain side is that one side believes that the UK can live, survive and even thrive outside of the EU and are willing to take an economic hit to achieve their independence, the other side does not share that view.

Aesma wrote:

par13del wrote:

Facts are that when and if the UK leaves the EU there will be an economic hit, the primary difference between the Leave and the Remain side is that one side believes that the UK can live, survive and even thrive outside of the EU and are willing to take an economic hit to achieve their independence, the other side does not share that view.

I don't think remainers don't believe the UK can make it outside the EU. They believe, however, that it will complicate their life, limit their opportunities (to work in any of 28 countries) and that it will take a long time for the UK to recover. Meaning after a decade of economic crisis, another decade of same.

bananaboy wrote:

Bingo. All of this for twenty years or more of "pain" whilst voluntarily giving ourselves less relevance and influence with our closest neighbours, allies and trading partners. This is a colossal waste of time and energy - we had much more serious problems to focus on than this.



Mark

Aesma wrote:

and that it will take a long time for the UK to recover. Meaning after a decade of economic crisis, another decade of same.