
More than 1,000 British staffers who work for the EU Commission have been reassured that they can stay in the institution after Brexit, it emerged on Tuesday 26 July. But Gunther Oettingerm, the HR and EU budget commissioner, warned that the workers may not be able to stay in their current posts due to potential conflicts of interest after March 2019.


UK citizens could be removed as the heads of the EU's trade delegations abroad, for instance, with Oettingerm saying that the positions should be filled by "citizens of [the EU27] not from a third country," according to Politico. The development comes after the latest round of talks between Brexit Secretary David Davis and the EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier.

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The duo have failed to find a compromise over the future of the more than three million EU nationals in the UK and the more than one million Britons on the continent.

Barnier has argued that the citizens must have the future oversight of the European Court of Justice, but the UK government has promised to split from the court.

"This is not a political point we're making, it's a legal one," Barnier said. "Simply, if there is to be continuity of EU law that has to be framed by case law of the court, only the court can interpret EU law. It's not a choice, it's an obligation."

Davis said: "We have looked at each other's proposals in depth and identified many concrete areas where we agree as well as areas where there will be further discussion, which will be a priority for the next round as Michel has said.


"We have also agreed to publishing a joint paper today that sets out the many areas of convergence in our proposals, and the areas we need to prioritise for future discussion in our future rounds.

"Michel listed a number of the areas which require that future discussion and I won't reiterate them, I'll add to them: issues like voters' rights, posted workers and of course, as he said, the need for shared certainty.

"We agreed on the need for certainty on the part of citizens both in the EU and the UK, we obviously have different views on how we achieve that."

Elsewhere, the government has reportedly agreed that free movement of EU nationals to the UK could continue for up to four years after Brexit. Theresa May's cabinet have apparently accepted such a compromise so that UK businesses can a so-called "cliff edge" in 2019.

Labour, meanwhile, are rowing over whether to back staying in the EU's customs union or not. Jeremy Corbyn has said that his party has not decided on the matter, but Shadow International Trade Secretary Barry Gardiner has claimed that it would be a "disaster".