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world newsFriday 12 January 2018
After 2017 breakthrough, 2018 is when Brexit gets tough
By JILL LAWLESS ligations and other divorce A Monday July 17, 2017 file photo of EU chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier, right, welcoming
Associated Press terms to start negotiating
LONDON (AP) — After future relations, including British Secretary of State, David Davis, for a meeting at the EU headquarters in Brussels. After
months of spats and false trade.
starts, Britain and the Eu- It’s a vast task that means months of spats and false starts, Britain and the European Union ended 2017 by agreeing to have
ropean Union ended 2017 setting rules for everything
by agreeing to have an from trade in automotive an amicable divorce.
amicable divorce. In 2018, parts to intelligence-shar-
they have to find a way to ing. Time is tight: A with- (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaer)
live together in the future drawal treaty and an out-
— and that’s when things line of future relations need as justice and home affairs government has not even Others prefer a “hard Brex-
could get complicated. to be ready by the fall, so
With the U.K. due to leave that EU member states and and include some sectors agreed on a united posi- it” that would leave Britain
the bloc in just over a year, the European Parliament
the fates of Britain and of can approve them before such as aviation and fisher- tion. Some ministers want a free to limit immigration, set
Prime Minister Theresa May Brexit day on March 29,
depend on whether the 2019. And the two sides ies” — but not financial ser- “soft Brexit” that would see its own economic course
two sides strike a friendly have differing — even con-
deal, a frosty deal or no tradictory — visions. vices. Britain pay for access to and strike new trade deals
deal at all. Britain wants a frictionless
“This year is going to be free-trade deal with the EU Meanwhile, neither side EU programs and markets, around the world, but
messy,” said Maike Bohn that allows goods to flow
of The3Million, a group freely and the U.K.’s huge has revealed in detail what and keep the U.K.’s regu- would mean tariffs and
that successfully lobbied financial services sector to
to make the rights of EU keep doing business across kind of post-divorce rela- lations broadly in line with other trade barriers with the
citizens in Britain one of the Europe.
dominant issues in the first The EU insists Britain cannot tionship it wants. The British those of the bloc. EU. q
round of Brexit talks. “Not “cherry pick” benefits of EU
everything is resolved and membership, such as ac-
there are some big, crucial cess to its borderless single
gaps.” market, without any of the
There was a Brexit break- responsibilities. EU chief
through in December, negotiator Michel Barnier
when the EU declared that said this week that the bloc
“sufficient progress” had was willing to strike a deal
been made on citizens’ covering “security, defense
rights, Britain’s financial ob- and foreign policy, as well
Court adviser:
Gay couples merit EU residency rights
By ALISON MUTLER infringes “on the right of cit- Romanian authorities were
Associated Press wrong to refuse to treat us
BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) izens of the Union and their as a family.”
— A gay Romanian-Amer- Coman added: “Roma-
ican couple is entitled to family members to move nian citizens can’t be di-
the same residency rights vided into good and gay.
as other married couples and reside freely within We can’t be treated as in-
in the European Union, a ferior citizens, lacking equal
top EU legal adviser said in the territory of the Member rights, based on prejudices
an opinion published Thurs- that some have about ho-
day. States,” Wathelet wrote. mosexuality.”
European Court of Justice The couple’s case is giv-
Advocate General Mel- Coman has been fighting ing the European Court of
chior Wathelet said the key Justice its first opportunity
legal issue in the case of since 2012 to get his mar- to consider if an EU direc-
Romanian Adrian Coman tive on the rights of citizens
and his American husband, riage to Hamilton in Bel- and their family members
Claibourn Robert Hamilton, to “move and reside free-
was “not that of legaliza- gium two years earlier rec- ly” within the bloc applies
tion of marriage between when married spouses are
persons of the same sex but ognized in Romania, which two men, according to
that of freedom of move- Wathelet.
ment of a Union citizen.” doesn’t acknowledge Same-sex unions remain
So while the 28 EU countries difficult in Romania. Homo-
“are free to provide or not same-sex unions. The cou- sexuality was only decrimi-
for marriage for persons of nalized in the conservative,
the same sex,” they must ple lives in New York. Eastern European nation as
not limit their application of Romania prepared to join
spousal rights in a way that Romania’s Constitutional the EU in 2002.q
Court asked the European
Court of Justice, which is
based in Luxembourg, to
weigh in with its legal in-
terpretation of the case.
Thursday’s decision is non-
binding on EU court judges,
who are expected to issue
a ruling this year, but they
often follow the reasoning
laid out by advocates gen-
eral. “We are overjoyed,”
Hamilton said in a written
statement. “It shows the
