Guy VERHOFSTADT (ALDE, BE), Parliament's coordinator for the negotiations on the UK withdrawal from the EU, gives a press point following the Brexit Steering Group meeting with the 3 million representatives and Home Office officials.

Brussels

VERHOFSTADT, Guy (Renew, BE)

Brexit (T)

article 50 of the Lisbon treaty (T)

press point

EU - United Nations (T)

Press point by Guy VERHOFSTADT (ALDE, BE), Parliament's coordinator for the negotiations on the UK withdrawal from the EU following the Brexit Steering Group meeting with the 3 million representatives and Home Office officials: extracts

SOUNDBITE (English), Guy VERHOFSTADT (ALDE, BE), Parliament&apos;s coordinator for the negotiations on the UK withdrawal from the EU, For us it's important that the system, that will apply after the withdrawal, is a smooth system. We want it cost free, that is still a point of discussion. We want, also, a system that is not only applicable for most of those EU citizens but also for the vulnerable people. Many people who are maybe not capable to use these digital device to apply for this settled status and we need also a special regime for them.

SOUNDBITE (English), Guy VERHOFSTADT (ALDE, BE),  Parliament&apos;s coordinator for the negotiations on the UK withdrawal from the EU ,  We agreed at the end of the meeting that from our side, from the side of the European Parliament, a number of question marks, requests and recommendations will be send to the UK authorities, so to be sure that when the system will be put in place by the end of 2018, it will be an easy system, a system that gives also the possibility to directly register that status for the EU citizens and as we also indicated already many times in the resolution of the Parliament, we are working also from all sides very hard towards our Member States to have an easy system also for the UK nationals.

SOUNDBITE (English), Guy VERHOFSTADT (ALDE, BE), Parliament&apos;s coordinator for the negotiations on the UK withdrawal from the EU,, We have mainly concentrated ourselves on the fact that this has created additional anxiety on the EU citizens and that we have to get the new system right from day one. And that the reason why we are saying, look one application or registration per family has to be sufficient, that has to be possible. Secondly, we are also looking that it becomes a real system of registration rather than application. That means that if people fill in all the data that are necessary, that from that moment on there is this status and that it is not necessary to wait for weeks and months, not to say years, before the Home Office is agreeing with this. And we are looking naturally also for cost free, because it is not the fault of the EU citizens that they have to ask for the status, it's because of Brexit.