LONDON: European Union citizens who come to Britain during a transition period after the country leaves the bloc should not have the same rights to remain as those who come earlier, British Prime Minister Theresa May said Thursday.
Speaking to reporters on a trip to China, May said she will fight proposals to give EU nationals full residency rights if they arrive after Britain leaves the EU in March 2019.
"This is a matter for negotiation for the immediate period. But I'm clear there's a difference between those people who came prior to us leaving and those who will come when they know the U.K. is no longer a member of the EU," she said.
Britain and the bloc have agreed in principle to a period of about two years after March 2019 during which the U.K. will follow EU rules but without having a seat at the bloc's decision-making table.
May's stance will please pro-Brexit lawmakers in her Conservative Party, but is at odds with EU officials, who say Britain must guarantee the rights of EU citizens if it wants free access to the substantial European single market during the transition.
Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament's chief Brexit spokesman, told The Guardian: "Citizens' rights during the transition is not negotiable."
Meanwhile, pro-EU politicians in Britain are urging the government to heed economic assessments being prepared that predict limiting immigration from the EU will leave the British economy worse off.
May's Conservative government dismissed the documents, leaked to the BuzzFeed news site, as unfinished and unapproved. But it has agreed to show them to British lawmakers after pressure from Parliament.
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Theresa May says EU citizens won't get same rights after Brexit
Theresa May says EU citizens won't get same rights after Brexit
Cuba defends military drills as deterrent against US aggression
HAVANA: Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel defended his country’s military preparedness exercises on Saturday as a deterrent against potential aggression from the United States.
US President Donald Trump this month warned that Cuba “is ready to fall” and told Havana to “make a deal” or pay a price similar to Venezuela, whose ousted leader Nicolas Maduro was taken to America by US forces in a January 3 bombing raid that killed dozens of people.
Venezuela was a key ally of Cuba and a critical supplier of oil and money, which Trump has vowed to cut off.
Diaz-Canel on Saturday supervised military exercises that included a tank unit from Cuba’s armed forces.
He was accompanied by Cuban General Alvaro Lopez Miera, who is the minister of the armed forces, and other high-ranking military officials.
“The best way to prevent aggression is for imperialism to have to calculate the price of attacking our country,” Diaz-Canel said in remarks broadcast on Cuban television.
“And that has a lot to do with our preparation for this type of military action... This takes on significant importance in the current circumstances,” he added.
Cuba’s National Defense Council, which is led by Diaz-Canel, recently met “with the objective of increasing and improving the level of preparedness and cohesion” among the country’s leadership, according to an official government statement.
The council met to “analyze and approve the plans and measures for transitioning to a State of War,” the statement added, without providing further details.
These military exercises are part of the country’s preparation “under the strategic concept of the War of the Entire People,” a term used by authorities for the mobilization of civilians in the event of armed conflict.
US President Donald Trump this month warned that Cuba “is ready to fall” and told Havana to “make a deal” or pay a price similar to Venezuela, whose ousted leader Nicolas Maduro was taken to America by US forces in a January 3 bombing raid that killed dozens of people.
Venezuela was a key ally of Cuba and a critical supplier of oil and money, which Trump has vowed to cut off.
Diaz-Canel on Saturday supervised military exercises that included a tank unit from Cuba’s armed forces.
He was accompanied by Cuban General Alvaro Lopez Miera, who is the minister of the armed forces, and other high-ranking military officials.
“The best way to prevent aggression is for imperialism to have to calculate the price of attacking our country,” Diaz-Canel said in remarks broadcast on Cuban television.
“And that has a lot to do with our preparation for this type of military action... This takes on significant importance in the current circumstances,” he added.
Cuba’s National Defense Council, which is led by Diaz-Canel, recently met “with the objective of increasing and improving the level of preparedness and cohesion” among the country’s leadership, according to an official government statement.
The council met to “analyze and approve the plans and measures for transitioning to a State of War,” the statement added, without providing further details.
These military exercises are part of the country’s preparation “under the strategic concept of the War of the Entire People,” a term used by authorities for the mobilization of civilians in the event of armed conflict.
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