EU Parliament must now carefully examine fine prints
A statement by Martin Schirdewan MEP, co-president of The Left in the European Parliament & member of the EU Parliament’s UK Coordination Group on the Brexit agreement between the EU and British government:
“I would like to welcome this agreement. Unfortunately, the internal politics of the British Conservative Party mean that it will not be possible for it to receive democratic scrutiny by the European Parliament before it comes into provisional effect.”
“Since the vote in 2016, the Left Group in the European Parliament have worked to minimise the damage done to the economy and to jobs, to uphold labour standards or environmental standards, to protect and defend citizens’ rights and to uphold the Good Friday Agreement and the Peace Process in Ireland. Some of this has already been secured in the Withdrawal Agreement and the Irish Protocol.
“We were told that this would be a fair trade agreement, that there would be no social dumping, no environmental dumping and no fiscal dumping. We were assured that the future of fishing communities would be secured. We were promised that the personal data of EU citizens – including DNA and fingerprint data – would be protected.
“Over the coming weeks, we will be examining the agreement in great detail to ensure that it lives up to those promises.
“As member states will not have time to properly scrutinise and evaluate the agreement, it falls to the European Parliament to deliberate carefully before giving its consent.”