Will the British officials be kicked out of the EU institutions?

What will become of the thousand British officials in the European institutions? This will be one of the (many) points to be decided in the negotiations.

There are exactly 1,126 of them. Just over a thousand British people working in the European institutions. What will become of them? At first glance, from the outset, the most logical outcome seems to be the actual exit of the country from the European Union – scheduled in at least two years’ time. Except that the European Union cannot get out of it so easily. If only for linguistic reasons. English will continue to be one of the official languages of the European Union (where Ireland remains a member) and will require many English mother-tongue translators to cope with the volume of legislative documents and communications. produced each year by the institutions. But there are only 137 British translators. What about the other 989 civil servants? For the Commission, their status protects them from a Brexit. “You left your national hats at the door when you entered this institution. Today that door is not closing on you”, Jean-Claude Juncker said in an internal message to all officials. This is a debatable argument when you consider the often strong relationship between British officials and London.

In the corridors, legal arguments are also put forward to defend the retention of civil servants. “No legal rule says that when a country leaves the EU, civil servants have to leave too,” argues a European source.In principle, they entered the EU by competition as part of a Member State, they can only leave by express decision of the European institutions,” explains Félix Géradon, deputy secretary-general of Union Syndicale, one of the European civil service unions. For the time being, however, Jean-Claude Juncker, like Martin Schulz and the management of the Council of the European Union, is not yet a member of the European Union.
have expressed their willingness to retain their officials and will bring this issue to the forefront of the negotiations. But does this mean that all Britons
will stay in Brussels?

Read the entire article “Will the British officials be kicked out of the European institutions” written by Loreline Merelle : Le Point.