While the British government remains in total confusion about the terms of Brexit and will not have sufficient support for a possible third ‘meaningful vote’ on Tuesday, 26 March in the British Parliament, the European Commission stressed on Monday, 25 March the importance of preparing for an “increasingly likely” scenario of a British exit without a Withdrawal Agreement on 12 April.
For this, the European institution considers that it has completed its work to prepare for emergency measures in the event that this risk materialises. Since 2017, it has published 90 Brexit preparedness notes, three Commission communications (detailing all the work done for Brexit in each case) and has made 19 legislative proposals. All the proposals were adopted, except the one on the visa issue.
The emergency measures recommended included respect for the rights of citizens, both those of the Twenty-Seven in the United Kingdom and of the British in the EU. The 4.5 million people concerned should still be able to benefit for some time from their current rights, including social rights. This, in any case, is the recommendation that the Commission has made to Member States, as the Commission itself has no competence on issues such as residence or residence rights.
A toll-free number has also been set up by the Commission to guide citizens in the event of a ‘no-deal’ risk (00 800 6 7 8 9 10 11).
The European institution, on the other hand, has proposed legislation on the road or sea freight sectors and connectivity, air transport (British companies will be allowed to operate on the territory of Member States, but not to link one Member State to another), financial services and the fisheries sector. In the event of a no-deal Brexit, mutual access to British and European waters, as it exists today, would be maintained until the end of 2019 (see EUROPE 12217/27).
All these emergency measures, however, will only be valid if the United Kingdom grants reciprocity to Member States.
By 12 April, according to the agreement reached in Brussels between the European Council and the Twenty-Seven on 21 March (see EUROPE 12219/1), the United Kingdom will have either validated the Withdrawal Agreement or requested a longer stay in the EU, provided that the European elections are held on its territory.
If this is not the case, the possibility of a no-deal Brexit would then become very real, with the United Kingdom suddenly becoming a non-Member State subject to the trade rules of the World Trade Organisation.
Speaking to British MPs on Monday, British Prime Minister Theresa May regretted that “as things stand, there is still not sufficient support in the House to bring back the deal for a third meaningful vote”. But her intention remains to vote on the agreement a third time “this week”.
The British government has submitted to MPs the legislative proposal to change the date of Brexit, which has so far been scheduled for Friday, 29 March.
In the event of a no-deal Brexit, major disruptions would be expected. For the movement of people, the British will no longer be allowed to use EU-EEA-CH lanes at airports for the verification of their travel documents, for example, and will have to comply with the verification rules laid down for non-Member States nationals. In other words, they should have to systematically show their passports in order to travel to a particular Member State and undergo more thorough checks.
On Monday, the Commission published a specific communication on these subjects of citizens' movement. In theory, regarding the stay of British nationals in the Schengen area and in the EU, they should not need visas if the stay is less than 3 months, but the legislation provided for this purpose by the Commission is still not finalised between the European Parliament and the Council of the EU, which are divided on the reference to Gibraltar (see EUROPE 12203/10).
Without an orderly British exit, freight transport could be severely disrupted and, as such, the Irish issue will become even more acute. To avoid the re-establishment of physical checkpoints at the island's North-South border, a possibility that the Commission has in the past considered to be a logical consequence of a ‘no-deal’, the Commission and Dublin are actively working to provide for controls outside the border, even though the Commission has not published a specific plan on this subject.
The Good Friday Agreement, which provides in particular for this North-South cooperation, will in any case continue to apply. The Northern Irish will, in theory, be able to continue to choose British or Irish nationality, or both.
The Twenty-Seven have already, to varying degrees, taken steps to prepare for the ‘no- deal’ as the Commission said on Monday, 25 March that they were “prepared” and had taken this work seriously. But it is not necessarily the feelings of the professions concerned, such as the French customs officers who recently went on strike in Calais to demonstrate the overload of work and the lengthening in terms of delays and working time that a no-deal exit, with much longer queues, would constitute.
In any case, several Member States have hired additional customs staff to handle a ‘no-deal’ scenario, particularly for the countries most connected to the United Kingdom: 700 new recruitments were made in France, 300 to 400 in Belgium and more than 900 in the Netherlands, according to Commission data.
Link to the Communication on the movement of citizens and goods: https://bit.ly/2FqSVTY. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)