EU Parliament to vote on resolution giving ‘indirect’ backing to associate EU citizenship for Britons
THE EUROPEAN Parliament is to vote tomorrow on a resolution on its negotiation aims for Brexit – including a paragraph which is hoped to make possible voluntary ‘associate EU citizenship’ for Britons who want to remain EU citizens after the UK leaves.
Associate citizenship is an idea originally raised by Luxembourg MEP Charles Goerens and which is now being championed by the parliament’s main Brexit negotiator, Guy Verhofstadt, who belongs to the same liberals and democrats parliamentary group.
Due to Mr Verhofstadt’s backing a paragraph has been included in the parliament’s draft resolution referring to ‘mitigating’ the effects of Britons losing their EU citizenship rights, which a spokesman for the MEP has called an ‘indirect’ reference to associate citizenship. The spokesman said the parliament's wish is "for British people to be able to keep EU citizenship, or something very similar, on an individual basis”. Meanwhile the president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, gave additional credibility to the plan when he said he is ‘not opposed’ to associate citizenship.
MEPs will debate the resolution from 9.00 tomorrow as part of this week’s plenary parliament sitting in Strasbourg and will vote on it at noon.
Connexion has, however queried the wording of the resolution which says at point 27 the parliament will aim to mitigate Britons’ loss of citizenship rights ‘within the limits of Union primary law’, which seems to create some uncertainty.
An EU law expert, Renan Le Mestre of Nantes University, previously told us that in his view: “As EU citizenship is consecrated by the treaties, they would need to be revised for it to be retained, even partially, by citizens of a state that no longer belongs to the EU.” ‘Union primary law’ refers to the founding treaties of Rome and Lisbon, so making changes ‘within its limits', appears to rule out treaty change.
However the spokesman for Mr Verhofstadt told Connexion today: “Associate membership is indeed not in the treaty but European citizenship is (article 20). So this should suffice to create a new status for British citizens."
The Treaty of Lisbon says at article 20: “Citizenship of the Union is hereby established. Every person holding the nationality of a member state shall be a citizen of the Union. Citizenship of the Union shall be additional to and not replace national citizenship.”
The spokesman said it is not expected that there will be any amendments, so it is likely that the resolution will be passed as it is.
The debate tomorrow can be seen live at this link.
The results of voting can be seen here.
