— The Director General of External Relations and EU Relations, Jesús Gamallo, participates in the CoR-UK contact group

Brussels, March 30th 2023. The Director General for External and EU Relations, Jesús Gamallo, participated in the meeting of the contact group between the European Committee of the Regions (CoR) and the United Kingdom, created to maintain the regional dialogue between the EU and the British country after Brexit.

This meeting was the group’s first since the European Commission and Rishi Sunak’s government signed the Windsor pact, a political agreement implementation of the Northern Ireland protocol.

This March, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on the Implementation Report on the UK’s Withdrawal Agreement from the EU. The document highlights the partial non-respect of the social rights of European citizens on British territory, mainly in administrative matters.

On the Northern Ireland Protocol, it regrets the lack of cooperation with EU staff on the Irish border, the only land border the UK has, and the lack of investment in Ireland. It also warns of the need to continue negotiating an agreement on Gibraltar, following the start of the ninth round of negotiations last October.

The Director General for External Relations and Relations with the EU, Jesús Gamallo, stressed the need to maintain contact between the EU and the British, despite their exit from the EU. “We continue to have common issues in all areas. At local and regional level, these meetings allow us to better specify this post-Brexit scenario,” he added. Prior to the meeting, Gamallo took part in the European Parliament’s commemorative event for the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreements, which put an end to the armed conflict on the island of Ireland.

The CoR-UK contact group

The EU’s Regional and Local Assembly launched a contact group with UK local and regional authorities in 2020 to ensure that political dialogue continues at this level after Brexit. Led by the President of the French region of Brittany, the group is composed of 12 members of the CoR and representatives of associations of municipalities in the UK and the governments and parliamentary assemblies of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as the City of London and the Government of Gibraltar.

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