The European Committee of the Regions launched a Contact Group with the United Kingdom on Tuesday 22 September to prepare for the post-Brexit period.
The first meeting was held behind closed doors with European governors, mayors and councillors, in the presence of the EU's chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, and Kati Piri (S&D, Netherlands), the European Parliament's co-rapporteur on the negotiations for a new partnership with the UK.
Objective: to discuss which regions will be the first to be affected by Brexit, especially if there is no deal. The UK Contact Group will meet up to three times a year to discuss, inter alia, issues related to trade, movement of goods, persons and services, and methods for further cross-border cooperation.
The group, long called for by the Committee, is made up of 12 full members of the Committee of the Regions (plus one observer from the Greens/EFA group) and aims to maintain the lines of communication open between local and regional authorities in the EU and the UK under the ‘Brexit’ framework. As a unilateral body, it does not include British members. But they will be regularly invited. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)