The opening day of the Brexit negotiations on 19 June was spent agreeing the terms of reference for the conduct of the negotiations, which confirmed that the first phase will focus on:
- the UK’s financial settlement
- the rights of UK citizens resident in other EU countries and of EU citizens resident in the UK
- the UK/Irish border; and
- other separation issues (likely to include the future of EU agencies currently based in the UK, the transfer of regulatory responsibilities (for example, euro clearing), the phasing out of EU financial programmes and cross-border security).
Separate groups have been established to negotiate each of these issues in parallel. You can view the agreed terms of reference here.
It remains unclear exactly when the second phase of the talks will start – the EU has made it clear that negotiations on the UK's future trading relationship with the EU can only commence once "sufficient progress" has been made with the issues being dealt with in the first phase. The likely implications of this for the overall timing of the Brexit negotiations are discussed in more detail here.
We will keep you posted as the negotiations unfold.
