Former Minister-delegate for European Affairs Victor Negrescu said that Brexit "is affecting citizens in Romania", primarily because the United Kingdom is an important partner of our country in the European Union (EU).
"Brexit is affecting Romania, it affects Romanian citizens for several reasons, first of all because we are talking about an important partner of ours in the EU, a partner with whom we have had many times as countries common stances on many topics, many topics of interest, especially on defense and security policy issues, as well as on the policy related to the support for the digital and innovation field and on everything that has to do with education," Negrescu told the conference "European Citizenship beyond Brexit", held at the National School of Political and Administrative Studies (SNSPA) on Thursday.
According to Negrescu, Romania risks losing the positive trade balance it has with the UK, and mentioned that there are many questions about the fate of the approximately 400,000 Romanian citizens living in the UK and as regards the British investments in Romania, for which solutions must be found so they are not affected.
"It is clear that Romania stands to lose, because the British investments in Romania will be and I see they are getting bigger, they have to carry on, and from this point of view there is a budget impact that has been calculated by experts from Romania (...) We are talking about a potential impact that can go up to 2 percent of GDP if no solutions are found in this direction. We are also talking about direct impact and indirect impact," Negrescu said.
At the moment, my operational work focuses on ensuring that Europeans in the UK, especially the Romanians, have the necessary rights, because there are many Romanian citizens in the UK (...). We also have clear public statements from the Prime Minister of Romania that the Romanian Government wants to ensure reciprocity regarding what happens to the Romanians in the UK and the British in Romania (...). 18 months ago it has been established that EU citizens will retain their rights after Brexit and there will be a scheme they can use (...). The Ministry of the Interior has a very good scheme for the EU citizens to maintain existing rights (...), for example, if you are a Romanian in the UK, you will retain your rights, you will be able to become permanent resident, you will have access to education, health care services, social security, said Andrew Noble, Ambassador of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Bucharest.
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