Britain looking at creating new body for EU citizens rights

LONDON:  British ministers are looking at the option of creating some kind of new body to oversee EU citizens’ rights in Britain, Sky News quoted sources as saying on Wednesday, a possible way of overcoming a standoff between London and Brussels.

Government officials have said that one way of getting around the clash over which court should guarantee the rights of EU nationals living in Britain and British citizens living in other EU countries could be the creation of a new body.

Britain wants its own courts to have supremacy after the country leaves the European Union, while the EU favours maintaining the position of the European Court of Justice.

Meanwhile, Britain said that there would be “profound and serious” implications if parties in Northern Ireland failed to agree on the creation of a new executive to govern, Britain’s minister for the province said on Wednesday.

A power-sharing agreement between Irish nationalists and their pro-British rivals collapsed in January and both sides have missed a series of deadlines to restore the assembly.

The latest deadline is for Thursday. “Our focus is on seeing that the executive is restored and I have been clear on not wanting to pre-empt what may happen should that not be the case. Obviously there would be profound and serious implications in that context,” James Brokenshire told parliament. (Reuters)