President Iohannis says Romanians' rights are perfectly protected if Brexit withdrawal agreement gets endorsed

AGERPRES special correspondent Florentina Peia reports: President Klaus Iohannis stated the the draft agreement regarding the UK's withdrawal from the European Union is a very good one for Romania, adding that in the current form, the Romanians' rights are perfectly protected.

"Today, we have only one topic on the agenda, it is the discussion on the draft Agreement on the UK's withdrawal, the Brexit Agreement. We need to understand well what is this about. The withdrawal of UK from the European Union has two important phases: the withdrawal and the future relations that will be established afterwards. We are talking about the Withdrawal Agreement today. It is very important because without such an agreement nothing remains established between the EU and the UK. This agreement has long been negotiated in detail, by the EU 27 (...) we established a team of negotiators with a chief negotiator, Mr Barnier, a team that did a very good job. We supported them, at the same time, we took care that the points we are interested in be very well clarified in this draft agreement and, so far, I can say that we are very pleased with the draft. The draft reflects all our concerns and the fate of the Romanians in the UK, the funding of the EU budget and many, many other things. It is an agreement that has about 500 pages and our opinion is that the draft is good, it's worth moving forward, " President Iohannis stated, prior to attending the extraordinary meeting of the European Council in Brussels.

He underscored that the Romanians' rights "are perfectly protected" if this draft agreement gets approved.

"The rights of the Romanians, if this agreement passes, are perfectly protected. (...) It is very suitable for us if this agreement comes into force," the head of state said.

The goal of the extraordinary meeting of the European Council is the endorsement of the draft Agreement on the UK's withdrawal from the European Union.

Moreover, members of the European Council will also discuss the political declaration on future EU-UK relations.

After the draft is agreed by the leaders of the EU member states, the Brexit withdrawal agreement will be formally approved in the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament and ratified by the British Parliament. AGERPRES (RO - editor: Marius Fratila; EN - editor: Rodica State)

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