The EP Committee on Constitutional Affairs discussed today with Guy VERHOFSTADT (ALDE, BE), Parliament's coordinator for the negotiations on the UK withdrawal from the EU

Exchange of views with Guy VERHOFSTADT (ALDE, BE), Parliament's coordinator for the negotiations on the UK withdrawal from the EU: extracts

https://api.multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/documents/20125/14622884/I141751Chapters%5BSD-EN%5D.srt

SOUNDBITE (English), Guy VERHOFSTADT (ALDE, BE), EP coordinator for the negotiations on the UK withdrawal from the EU, For the moment I didn't have seen a proposal that is 100% solving the problem. It's because there is a border, now it cannot become a hard border, what does it mean a hard border. I think the question is that there was no border anymore because everybody was part of the European Union and the Single Market. And it comes back to how to do it, where to put the border? On land, in the sea? Those are all possibilities and different things that we have to evaluate.

SOUNDBITE (English), Guy VERHOFSTADT (ALDE, BE),  EP coordinator for the negotiations on the UK withdrawal from the EU, I am very much in favour of giving the fastest as possible certainty to the citizens, for all of them, UK nationals and EU nationals. And we can do that on one condition, that is that the fastest as possible from the UK side they recognise that there is a financial settlement needed. I don't say that we need already to have an agreement on the fees, that's typical for a political negotiation, but at least at principle.

SOUNDBITE (English), Guy VERHOFSTADT (ALDE, BE),  EP coordinator for the negotiations on the UK withdrawal from the EU, There has been a question about the Erasmus Horizon 2020. Yes that's true, there is no in an association agreement based on Article 217, all these problems can be tackled. For example there are a number of countries who are participating in Horizon 2020 without being members of the European Union. Israel is a typical example of that. But that comes with rights and obligations, they pay for that and that's normal in this Horizon 2020 programme. So I think that from all sides there is no obstacle to conceive also such ways of cooperation.

SOUNDBITE (English), Guy VERHOFSTADT (ALDE, BE),  EP coordinator for the negotiations on the UK withdrawal from the EU, When we talk about reciprocity, but I can only echo what already has been said by our Chair, it's not a question of numbers say, ''oh there are 3 million and there are only 1 million''. I could say, is the 3 million represent only 0.6% of the total European population and 1 million of British coming to the continent represent nearly 2% of the total British population. What is this for then? We are talking about citizens, we are talking about individuals and every individual even when it should be only one individual, only one family that need to be our concern. It's not a question of numbers.