Brexit: where is the deal?

Brexit is happening. Source: http://www.thedailybell.com

Prime Minister Theresa May will trigger Article 50 tomorrow, starting the two- year process of leaving the European Union.

Britain, which has been in a state of unprecedented uncertainty since the outcome of the referendum last June, has now to honour its commitments to the European budget by paying a hefty divorce bill of £50bn.

However, the country may fail to meet one of three negotiating priorities, as it is willing to pay only a fraction of that amount.  

Mr Barnier, the EU chief who leads the Brexit negotiations and set the criteria, has warned of the possibility that the EU and Britain could fail to strike a deal with painful consequences for both economies.

His other priorities are not undermining the peace in Northern Ireland and deciding the status of the over 3 million EU nationals living in Britain.

The government should put into place an action plan aimed at protecting the rights of millions of people who have built a career and a life in Tanland, by not forcing them to move elsewhere. The act would help to maintain the current skilled and varied workforce and perhaps encourage more people from overseas to move to the UK and contribute to the economy, as it has been for many decades.

Otherwise, how is the British labour market going to cope with fewer and fewer EU workers choosing to move to the UK? The overall number of people in the European Union looking for a job in Britain has fallen by almost a fifth since January (Indeed, 2016), while the NHS hospitals have seen a sharp fall in number of EU nurses after Brexit vote, aggravating an already strained healthcare system.

To immediately guarantee the immigrants’ rights would make even more sense in the light of data revealing that 1,2 million British-born people reside in Europe and they hope not to be negatively affected by the Brexit agreement (United Nations, 2015).

A bad deal or no deal at all could be disastrous and cause severe delays at airports and long queues at Dover, as well as the suspension of the deliveries of nuclear material, not to mention the impact on the food industry. In fact, as many companies import ingredients from the EU and related costs are expected to rise even further in the short-term, companies need to decide whether to absorb that additional payment or change to a UK supply.

On top of the necessity to support  fair competition, Mr. Barnier has highlighted the tremendous importance of Great Britain and the EU co-operating on security and defence. Not by chance the European Union has helped avoid war between its members since 1945.