PRAGUE (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 08th January, 2019) The Czech government has prepared a bill defining the Czech-UK relations in case of a no-deal Brexit, Jan Hamacek, the country's interior minister and first deputy prime minister, said on Monday.
It was the Interior Ministry that had prepared the bill based on suggestions by other ministries and industrial unions.
"Our bill envisages a transition period until December 31 of this year, during which UK citizens will be granted the same position that they had as EU citizens in a range of spheres in our country. The government will make an effort so that the parliament passes the bill as soon as possible," Hamacek said.
He explained that if the proposed bill was not passed, then around 8,000 UK citizens residing in the Czech Republic would have a status of foreigners from non-EU nations after Brexit. This means that they will not be able to work legally there unless they received special permits, and they will also be unable to use medical and social services.
"If we had not prepared the bill, we would have endangered around 40,000 Czech citizens staying in the United Kingdom," Hamacek added, stressing that similar steps by the UK government were supposed to follow.
The United Kingdom is set to leave the European Union on March 29. However, due to repeated deadlocks in the Brussels-London Brexit talks and the disagreements on the final Brexit deal between the UK government and the parliament, there is a risk that the United Kingdom might withdraw from the bloc without a deal.
Since the no-deal Brexit raises concerns due to uncertainty both for UK citizens and companies living and working in the EU states and for the UK-based EU citizens and firms, the EU states have engaged in contingency planning.
