Brexit - Qué nos espera?

UK retirees race to settle in Europe before Brexit With the continuing uncertainty around Brexit and the potential impact on freedom of movement within Europe, many British retirees are moving to Europe while they still can. With the Brexit deadline of March 2019 looming, many British retirees (in particular) are heading to Europe to settle before it potentially becomes more difficult. Move now – or wait? Experts believe that it’s unlikely that any Brexit deal will make it as easy as it is now for retirees to move overseas. Unless there is free movement for EU workers in the UK, there is little chance of maintaining retirement rights such as being allowed to use the health systems on the continent, even though these are paid for by the NHS in some countries – Spain for example. This is backed up by research which has found that young immigrants provide an economic boost to most OECD countries , but people turn into a net drain on national finances when they reach t...

The U.K. is using an old trick to meet a deadline: ask for more time . As the third set of Brexit talks ran into familiar roadblocks and bitter frustrations were aired in public, an October deadline for a breakthrough is looking increasingly hard to meet. So the U.K. has asked the EU to squeeze in more negotiating sessions before then, according to a person familiar with the talks.  There are only two more rounds planned before an EU summit that will decide if “sufficient progress” has been made on the divorce settlement for talks to move on to trade. The discussions are scheduled in week-long blocks, yet most of the 100-strong team of British officials didn’t arrive in Brussels until mid-morning on Tuesday. A concluding news conference is slated for Thursday lunchtime. “The leeway the U.K. government has is very limited,” said Florian Otto, head of Europe research at global risk consultancy Verisk Maplecroft. “It isn’t really an option to let the timeline slip because...

Michel Barnier could hardly have been clearer . The EU’s chief negotiator cast off diplomatic language to start the third round of talks on Monday with a firm rebuke : “We must start negotiating seriously.” Barnier dismissed a raft of recent British policy documents, essentially telling Brexit Secretary David Davis the U.K. has been answering the wrong question. Barnier wants to know the U.K.’s position on how much it’s prepared to pay as a financial settlement when it leaves, Bloomberg’s Ian Wishart reports. For its part, the U.K. continued to call for “imagination” and flexibility. It still wants to show the EU that the issues of the divorce and the future relationship are intertwined and it makes sense to address them together. The EU has been clear it wants to tackle the U.K.-EU split first, and only then will it agree to talk about the future. Moving on to trade talks was penciled in for October but now looks more likely to slip.  “If the papers question the agr...

Once again, domestic politics will overshadow efforts to get down to Brexit talks. Just as Prime Minister Theresa May’s cabinet had started to talk with one voice on Brexit, the opposition Labour Party’s proposal to keep the U.K. in the single market for as long as four years looks set to fracture the Conservatives’ fragile unity. May’s lack of a parliamentary majority means it wouldn’t take much for a rebellion of pro-European Tories to nudge the government toward a softer Brexit. And lawmakers will have their chance to make their voices heard next month when key Brexit legislation hits Parliament. “There is now a real chance that the U.K. could stay in a customs union forever,” Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, said on Twitter . “But a few Tory rebels are needed.” Labour’s proposal is a reversal that puts clear water between the two main parties on Brexit policy. It would mean the U.K. remains in the single market and continues paying into the ...

The U.K. has now published a flood of documents on Brexit but remained silent on the one topic most likely to derail a deal : how much money it will pay the European Union. That’s a problem as talks resume next week with a deadline for making significant progress just eight weeks away. A continued reluctance to engage on the topic will prompt the EU to delay the start of talks on a long-term trade deal. Investors have noticed. The U.K. made concessions to the EU in some of its position papers, yet sterling still fell this week to its lowest closing level in eight years. “The thing that worries us is that it looks as if the negotiations over the bill are going to take a little bit longer,” said Mike Amey of Pacific Investment Management Co. “If we can’t agree the bill then we don’t even get through to the next round.” There is a combination of frustration and bewilderment at the U.K.’s approach and its failure to engage on some of the biggest issues, two EU diplomats te...

Back in July the European Union gave the U.K. some holiday homework: clarify what you want from Brexit or risk stalling the talks. Prime Minister Theresa May’s government got busy scribbling essays, the latest of which is on data protection and comes out today. The problem, according to some Brexit watchers, is that despite the frenzy of activity the U.K. may have made the cardinal error of failing to answer the questions properly . For a lot of what May’s team have handed in is focused on future relations between the two economies, while the EU wanted insight into how to resolve differences over separation issues such as Ireland’s border and citizens’ rights. There has also been next to nothing said by London on the critical issue of a financial settlement — and the U.K. isn’t expected to give any detail on it next week when talks resume in Brussels. That means the EU may still feel the U.K. hasn’t done enough for its governments to green-light negotiations for a long...

Britain is in a hurry to turn the Brexit talks to the topic of trade, but the European Union is counseling patience. Prime Minister Theresa May’s government will on Tuesday release another position paper on how it envisages its future relations with the EU. The latest focuses on how businesses and consumers can settle legal disputes after the breakup. The flood of documents is aimed at rebutting EU criticism that the U.K. has been unclear what it wants from Brexit. But is also marks an attempt to pressure the bloc into bringing forward discussion of a long-term trade deal by highlighting the complexity of the issues at hand. For example, Bart Van Vooren of Covington & Burling noted in a paper on Monday that the U.K. asked for British drug manufacturers to be able to release medicines to the European market after Brexit. Yet that would only work if Britain remains party to EU rules on pharmaceuticals, something that wil have to be discussed as part of a trade pact. ...