Following Saturday’s agreement of Brexit negotiation guidelines between the EU and the United Kingdom, the Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras was quick to reassure his priority will be the 70,000 Greeks living in the UK.
“Our priority is our citizens living in Great Britain – over 70,000 Greeks – the smooth trade relations and the uninterrupted flow of tourists from Great Britain.
“Brexit is an unpleasant development that is a result of the citizens’ dissatisfaction with EU policies. The remaining 27 member states have to work for a better, more democratic and more social Europe’’ the Greek Prime Minister underlined.
Tsipras said that the Brexit process will be a difficult one because the issues are complicated adding that the hardest part in divorces is always the one related to economic issues.
Meanwhile European Parliament’s President Antonio Tajani after Saturday’s summit said the priority is to defend the rights of the three million EU citizens living in the United Kingdom.
“It is crucial for us to defend the rights of European citizens working and studying in the UK. We want them to have the same rights after Brexit,’’ Tajani underlined and added that the European Parliament will also defend the rights of the one million British people living in EU countries.
The President of the European Parliament stressed that without an agreement on the rights of European citizens, “we cannot vote on the agreement” for exiting the EU.
He explained that the EU is not against Britain, it is them that decided to leave. The clearest feature of the negotiation, he said, is that the 27 member states of the EU are united as well as the European institutions.
