Withdrawal Agreement Joint Committee: Thirteenth Meeting

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Friday 17th May 2024 Written Statements

[The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

My noble Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton) has today made the following statement:

The Withdrawal Agreement Joint Committee met on 16 May, in Brussels, with delegates attending in person and by video conference. The meeting was co-chaired by myself and European Commission Executive Vice-President, Maroš Šefčovič. A joint statement was agreed and published on gov.uk.

We welcomed the work on the implementation of the withdrawal agreement to date, in particular on citizens’ rights, and progress on the implementation of the Windsor framework.

Under citizens’ rights, we reiterated our commitment to protect the rights of the millions of respective citizens across the UK and the EU. We welcomed the co-operation between the EU and UK and agreed that this work should intensify further, with a view to finding solutions to the outstanding issues in this area.

For the Windsor framework, we took stock of progress on the implementation of the Windsor framework, which has delivered significant benefits for people and businesses in Northern Ireland, and we both welcomed the restoration of the political institutions in Northern Ireland in February 2024. We adopted decisions on the implementation of the Windsor framework and agreed a corrigendum to Joint Committee Decision No. 1/2023.

Alongside this we also received an update on the work of the Withdrawal Agreement Specialised Committees since the last meeting on 28 September 2023 and adopted the withdrawal agreement annual report for the year 2023, pursuant to Article 164(6) of the Withdrawal agreement.

[HCWS480]