UK citizens as non-EU citizens in the EU after Brexit: applying the EU Directive on non-EU long-term residents
Professor Steve Peers , University of Essex* Introduction What happens to UK citizens in the EU27 after Brexit, if they have been living in an EU27 country for some time? If the proposed withdrawal agreement is ratified, they will retain most of their current rights under EU free movement law in the country they live in, although without the right to move freely between Member States any longer. (There will also be a transition period during which UK citizens could still enjoy free movement rights to the EU27, and vice versa). EU27 citizens in the UK will equally retain current rights (for a detailed annotation of an earlier version of the citizens’ rights provisions in the agreement, which do not differ much from the final version, see my blog post ). If the withdrawal agreement is not ratified, there is apparently no intention on the part of the Commission to propose an EU-wide law to protect UK citizens’ acquired rights (as I suggested here ). So, as the Commission ...