Brexit - Qué nos espera?

LONDON — If the Spanish region of Catalonia breaks away from Spain in a so-called "Catalexit", it would plunge the region into a long period of uncertainty and could end up having negative effects that "proportionally exceed" those of Brexit according to Dutch bank ING. Catalonia aims to hold a referendum at the beginning of October to decide whether or not the region — which includes the city of Barcelona — should declare independence from Spain. The region has engaged in a long battle to preserve its cultural identity. Whether or not that referendum takes place remains up in the air, but if it does, the consequences could be huge. "As with Brexit, we believe that any Catalexit would plunge the region into a long period of uncertainty and would most probably be negative for the private sector," ING economist Geoffrey Minne writes in the note titled "Catalonia: the cost of being single." The movement for Catalan independence ...

The first is, of course, the infamous one the European Union wants the U.K. to pay to settle its financial accounts with the bloc. Newspaper reports at the weekend suggested Prime Minister Theresa May was set to approve paying as much as £50 billion ($68.5 million). Under that formula Britain would send to £17 billion a year to Brussels for three years after Brexit, ending payments ahead of the 2022 general election, the Sunday Times said. That kind of amount may help break the deadlock between the two sides and pave the way to a trade deal, but Brexit Secretary David Davis called the report “nonsense” and “completely wrong.” The British are seeking a faster pace of talks over the coming months in order to make a deal. Davis accused the EU of trying to “play time against money” and told the BBC’s Andrew Marr on Sunday that its pressure tactics “looked a bit silly.” Speaking in Washington on Friday, he hinted at the idea of linking the divorce bill to securing a transiti...

La primera ministra británica, Theresa May, firma la carta con la que el Reino Unido solicitará formalmente la retirada del país de la Unión Europea.  Un millón de trabajadores europeos, el 3,1% de la población activa del Reino Unido, podría abandonar el país tras el brexit, según un estudio internacional encargado por KPMG.  El estudio, Efectos del brexit sobre los ciudadanos de la Unión Europea, revela que, aunque el 45% de los ciudadanos europeos que trabajan en el país planean quedarse, un 35% se está planteando marcharse, y el 8% ya ha tomado la decisión de hacerlo. Las empresas serán las que desempeñen una función "crucial" en este sentido, pues el 51% de los ciudadanos europeos que trabajan en el Reino Unido espera que sus compañías les pidan que se queden.  Los trabajadores de la UE más proclives a abandonar el Reino Unido son los denominados por el estudio como Indey, correspondientes a las siglas en inglés de: independientes, solicitados, formados y...

After another round of Brexit talks ended in acrimony, the time could be ripe for national leaders to step in and break the deadlock. The question is  whether Theresa May has the skills to do it . Colleagues and counterparts who have dealt with the prime minister over the years attest to her ability to be stubborn — “By God it was hard work,” former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said last year when asked about negotiating with her — but getting agreement will require flexibility as well as toughness. On Thursday the European Union’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, said the talks still had not progressed anywhere near enough for there to be a prospect of moving on to trade discussions after October. (His British counterpart, David Davis, was less pessimistic.) That prompted a  drop in the pound  and dismayed European officials. The European Parliament’s Brexit lead, Guy Verhofstadt,  bemoans the ...

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...