The Brexit negotiations

[geoffreys]

Seems to me that with regard to the issue of citizen's rights the EU's stance that the ECJ (European Court of Justice) should be the one to adjudicate any problems arising from EU citizens living in UK is a stumbling block. The UK say it is the UK courts who should adjudicate.
So why doesn't UK accept that? In exchange for the UK Courts being the ones to adjudicate if any problems arise from UK citizens living in any of the other 27 EU Member States?
Geoff.

[Royal]

Of course it's the UK courts which should adjudicate. If you live in the UK you abide by UK law as upheld by the UK courts. If you live in Timbuktu you abide by Timbuktu law and if in the EU, EU law.

For those that support the EU stance - how long should they adjudicate for? They could say that they will adjudicate for EU citizen's, their children, their children's children, etc ad infinitum.

Time to let go of the EU strings.

[josef k]

Yes, it is ad infinitum, and so it should be. The issue is which court should be used by individuals and governments in case of dispute under the negotiated settlement regulations. The UK is saying the EU court will have no jurisdiction within the UK once it leaves Europe, the EU is saying the UK courts will have no jurisdiction in the rest of Europe. Both these statements are correct, yet there is a need for a single court to rule on these things so there is a level playing field across the EU and UK. The whole idea is to ensure EU people in the UK are treated the same as UK people in the EU, so you can't have two different courts potentially giving different outcomes. The logical solution is a special court comprising of both EU and UK judges, to meet as and when necessary.

[Dominic]

Surely the "When In Rome" policy would be the easiest and fairest?

[Jimgward]

It would be nonsense to have EU law after brexit, ruling in these cases....

[geoffreys]

It would be nonsense to have EU law after brexit, ruling in these cases....

I totally agree.
Problem is this might be a red line for the EU side; to have the ECJ adjudicating on any problems arising in UK for a EU citizen residing there legally.
Which is why, in my OP, I suggested the UK side could have their own red line with UK courts adjudicating on any problems arising in a EU State for a UK citizen residing there legally.
I like it because the ECJ would have powers in the UK, but UK courts would have powers in 27 EU Member States (including Cyprus of course).
Geoff.

[Pete G]

There is a backstory to this, which puts the EU position in perspective a little with respect to overall policy which might make the EU 'problem' a little clearer.

The original members of the EEC and all of the 'first round' joiners were signatories to the European Convention on Human Rights, which was considered by all of the major powers as the 'gold standard' however a few of the countries applying for membership were not, and the EU were [unusually with some justification] worried that some member states nationals, moving to these countries might not have their rights as well protected in the new member states as they had been previously.

So when they made the Maastict treaty, they made two important changes to the Treaty of Rome. They effectively reformed the political control to formally found the EU, and they made it a condition that new members become signatories to the ECHR [if they weren't already], along with some other human rights stuff [like you could not have the death penalty on your statute books, for example]

So the situation was, as the Remain campaign insisted throughout, that human rights law wasn't fundamentally the concern of the EU, and the 'Supreme Court' for any member state was the ECtHR for human rights issues, and the CJEU for everything else.

Which all seemed to work out quite well initially, however it turns out that the ECtHR was not sufficiently grateful for the boost in importance, and kept on ruling against member states, even when they were just trying to obey the directives of the newly powerful EU. Obviously the EU could not let this affront to their majesty stand, but their hands were tied by the fact that they themselves has raised the ECtHR to its current influential position.

So what they decided to do [and the bit the remain campaign were strangely quiet about during the referendum] was use the opportunity to write into the Lisbon 'changes' something called the EU charter of fundamental rights which, very quietly took over vast swathes of Human Rights legislation, and made the member states responsible, not to the 'independent' ECtHR but to the more politically malleable CJEU for some fairly key human rights provisions, so that member states could [in fact must] obey EU directives even if they appeared to conflict with ECHR standards.

This is a bit of a disaster for the EU as when the UK exits, it will no longer be bound by Lisbon, therefore no longer bound by the surreptitious control of the EUCFR, and purely reliant on the ECHR, which gives them not only the opportunity to compare and contrast their rights under the new EUCFR with the rights under the old ECHR exclusively regime, and quite effectively lets the cat out of the bag in terms of the EU being bound by their member states having signed up to the ECHR [which they no longer are, effectively, but they would really rather people didn't realise it]

[kingfisher]

"Brussels is said to be unwilling to set an exact figure on how much the UK’s so-called ‘divorce bill’ will be once it leaves the European Union.
The reports come on day two of the second round of formal negotiations, which has seen German MEP Hans-Olaf Henkel accuse the EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier of trying to “punish” Britain.
According to the Press Association, the divorce bill, which is expected to be tens of billions of pounds, will not be agreed by the UK until the “11th hour” of official departure proceedings from the EU.
The government’s negotiating team is understood to be frustrated that Brussels is not explaining in more detail what it believes the UK is legally entitled to pay.
Last week the UK conceded that it will continue its commitment to any financial obligation."

[From Yahoo Finance]

Yet I'm sure that the EU was adamant that the "divorce bill" had to be agreed along with citizens rights, etc, early on.

[holitec]

This Divorce bill seems a little high to me. I understand the current budget was for 7 years, ending in 2020. As the UK pays a net contribution of about 10bn per year, and will have presumably have paid another 20bn net by 2019, the max it can be is 10bn to 2020, plus any pension commitments, reportably 6bn (which is a crazy amount for pensions for just those staff needed to manage the UK bits of the EU - unless you assume that EU staff get paid 10x more than anyone else) - where is the other 80bn or so made up from?

There cannot be any commitments beyond 2020 as these have yet to be set. It would probably be illegal under WTO rules to pay a fee to trade within a market.

I would think there is a difference between "legally entitled" and wishful thinking.

[Poppy]

Imust be very naive I suppose,as I was amazed to learn that the UK have around 90 negotiators in Brussels at the moment!

[Jimgward]

Imust be very naive I suppose,as I was amazed to learn that the UK have around 90 negotiators in Brussels at the moment!

It is naive to think that 3 politicians can negotiate Brexit.... similarly, decisions of state, budgets etc. are all completed on the advice of Civil Servants...

David Davis isn't a negotiator, nor can he be an expert on law, facts and rules.... he needs massive backup, in what could be the most complex inter-union negotiation in world history.

We also cannot 'afford' to make ANY mistakes...

[Poppy]

No I was not expecting 3 but thought probably a team of 12 or so so yes I am definitely naive!!

Quite agree that we cannot afford mistakes!