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Brexit need not mean that you are stripped of your rights as an EU citizen, according to a new report from a team at Swansea University.

The prospect of the UK leaving the EU in 2019 has raised concerns about what will happen to the rights we have today to travel, live and work anywhere across the union.

Here are key rights that come with EU citizenship:

You can live anywhere in the EU;

You can work anywhere in the EU;

You can train or study anywhere under the same conditions as nationals;

You can receive necessary healthcare in any EU country;

You cannot be discriminated against;

You are entitled to the protection of the consular authorities of any other EU country;

You can vote and stand in a European Parliament election.

Will these rights vanish when we leave the EU in 2019?

(Image: AP)

The research led by Professor Volker Roeben sets out a legal argument for how these rights can continue or a new category of “associate citizenship” could be created.

The report comes as Brexit negotiations get underway ahead of the Britain’s exit from the EU in March 2019. A top priority is reaching agreement on the rights of UK citizens in the EU and vice versa.

This report, commissioned by Plaid Cymru MEP Jill Evans, will give ammunition to campaigners who are adamant that people should not lose rights in a host of areas including health and education.

Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament’s chief negotiator, argues there needs to be a way to keep citizenship “for those citizens who on an individual basis are requesting it”.

A petition calling for people in the UK to be offered EU citizenship has been signed by more than 313,800 people.

Is citizenship a right that cannot be taken away?

The report makes the case for “continuing union citizenship”, arguing that “citizenship is the fundamental status of individuals that cannot be taken away”.

This would mean “nothing in the status quo would change as the result of Brexit” for either British citizens in the EU or for people from the remaining 27 member states living in the UK.

Alternatively, the report proposes that in the withdrawal agreement between the EU and the UK “Associate Union Citizenship for British nationals could be matched by an Associate British Citizenship for Union citizens from the remaining member states”.

It suggests that “dormant rights to free movement could be protected in the agreement for a defined period of time”.

The report argues that an “important principle” of UK citizenship law is that “individuals may not be stripped of their citizenship as result of territorial changes,” adding: “That principle should apply to the protection of union citizenship.”

The authors are clear that putting these arrangements in place would not require any revision of the founding treaties of the EU.

Jill Evans: Protecting people’s rights should come first

Welsh MEP Jill Evans said: “This report is an important contribution to the debate around UK citizens retaining their EU citizenship, or having the right to become associate EU citizens. Many people in Wales still identify strongly as Welsh European and are horrified at the thought of losing their EU citizenship, with all the benefits it brings.

“I have received hundreds of emails from constituents who rightly feel that it is unfair that their rights are stripped away from them against their will. Protecting people’s rights should come first in the negotiations.

“We need guarantees not only on residency rights, but also on citizenship. People should not have their EU citizenship taken away from them against their will. [It] is not inevitable.

“Other options exist and this report presents them in detail.”

Ms Evans claimed there was a “lot of support” within the 27 remaining EU member states for “associate citizenship” and an “unwavering commitment to securing the rights of citizens”.