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22nd Nov 2018

EU Commission agrees draft text on future Brexit relationship

Game time

Oli Dugmore

BRUSSELS, BELGIUM - NOVEMBER 21: Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Theresa May (L) is welcomed by the President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker (R) in the Berlaymont, the EU Commission headquarters on November 21, 2018 in Brussels, Belgium. British Prime Minister Theresa May will meet the President of the EU Commission to prepare for the Brexit EU Summit on November 25, 2018 (Photo by Thierry Monasse/Getty Images)

Game time

The EU Commission today agreed the draft text for the future relationship between the UK and EU after Brexit.

President of the European Council Donald Tusk said he passed the political declaration to the EU’s remaining 27 countries on Thursday morning, following the Commission president’s confirmation that it was “agreed at negotiators’ level and agreed in principle at political level, subject to the endorsement of the Leaders.”

Theresa May was negotiating late into the night on Wednesday with Jean-Claude Juncker. This political declaration, plus the 585-page draft withdrawal agreement, form the documentary basis for Brexit.

Whether the EU’s other member states will agree to it remains to be seen.

Last week the EU published a seven-page version of the draft on the future relationship, this political declaration is a filled out version of that draft, a wholesome 26 pages.

It lays out the structure of the UK’s relationship with the EU once it leaves on March 29 2019. After that date, negotiations will start expanding on that structure.

European Council president Donald Tusk said: “I have just sent to EU27 a draft political declaration on the future relationship between EU and UK.

“The Commission president has informed me that it has been agreed at negotiators’ level and agreed in principle at political level, subject to the endorsement of the leaders.”