No quick Brexit, says EU

Commission looks at citizens’ rights and the divorce bill in two new position papers.

The European Commission on Monday spelled out in two new negotiating papers how, even when the United Kingdom officially leaves the European Union in March 2019, it will still be entangled in the EU’s financial and legal systems for years. Call it “slow Brexit.”

The Commission said citizens in the process of acquiring EU rights (such as permanent residency in another country in the bloc) should be allowed to finish doing so, and that the U.K. will be liable for certain financial payments, such as the salaries of British teachers at schools for the children of EU officials, until 2021.

The U.K. would also remain under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice while all pending cases are completed, and the U.K. would not immediately receive upon departure all the capital it has supplied to the European Investment Bank.

Plus, the EU expects the U.K. to pay all of its financial commitments as part of the seven-year EU budget covering the period 2014-2020.

The most significant of the two papers relates to citizens’ rights.

The Commission has specified that it does not trust the U.K. to uphold EU rights on the day of Brexit on a case-by-case basis. Instead, it argues that “all citizens’ rights set out in the Withdrawal Agreement should be granted as directly enforceable vested rights in both the U.K. and in EU27.”

The EU’s position on the accumulation of EU-level rights for citizens living abroad, even after Brexit occurs, is illustrated with specific examples.

One such example reads: A student can still become an “EU worker” after ending their studies without having to comply with immigration law for third-country nationals, and “a person who resided legally in the U.K. for less than five years” when the Withdrawal Agreement comes into force, “can continue to accumulate the necessary five years residence giving access to permanent residence rights.”

The biggest financial problem for the British government could be the capital it has paid to the European Investment Bank.

The U.K. is a 16 percent shareholder in the EIB and has €39.2 billion locked up in the institution, which often funds projects with a 20- to 30-year timeline. The U.K.’s liabilities should be “decreased in line with the amortization of the EIB portfolio outstanding at the time of United Kingdom withdrawal,” the Commission said.

Overall, the Commission’s position would see the U.K. paying around €100 billion, according to an estimate by the Financial Times.