In a plenary debate on the evening of Tuesday 14 March, MEPs welcomed the positive developments that took place at the end of February between the Commission and the United Kingdom on the Northern Ireland Protocol (see EUROPE 13130/2) and hoped, like Irish MEP Sean Kelly (EPP), that this agreement, known as the ‘Windsor Framework’, which has yet to be approved by either side, will “put behind us the long discussions” on this issue, and open up “a new 25-year period of prosperity”, just days before the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement on 10 April.
French Renew Europe MEP Nathalie Loiseau, who chairs the European Parliament’s permanent delegation to the EU-UK Parliamentary Assembly, also welcomed the fact that UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had himself extolled the good fortune of the province of Northern Ireland being in both the UK market and the single market, an asset that the UK had lost precisely by no longer being in the EU, she noted.
On 15 March, MEPs also adopted a report on the state of implementation of the UK’s withdrawal agreement from the EU, signed in 2019.
Prepared by the European Parliament Committee on Constitutional Affairs, the report, drafted by Portuguese MEP Pedro Silva Pereira (S&D), points to persistent difficulties, notably the great uncertainty of the 2.6 million Europeans who have obtained a simple temporary residence permit in the UK.
The European Parliament is thus “deeply concerned about the inconsistency with the WA arising from the situation that pre-settled status holders who do not reapply successfully for settled status risk losing their rights to live, work and access services, such as social security support and housing and could be liable to removal from the UK”, says the report adopted by 537 votes to 37 with 48 abstentions.
Link to the report: https://aeur.eu/f/5tc (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)