Boris Johnson, Britain’s often colourful minister for the Foreign Office will be meeting his Portuguese counterpart Augusto Santos Silva in Lisbon tomorrow (Friday), with Brexit on the agenda.
Secretary of State for European Affairs, Ana Paula Zacarias, confirmed yesterday that Johnson will be coming “so that we can have this conversation (about Brexit), which is a very important conversation”.
TVI24 reports that Zacarias took part in a parliamentary commission debate on Tuesday “dedicated to the conclusions of last week’s Council of Europe”.
She is described as having “defended that the United Kingdom has to respond in relation to its financial responsibilities, commenting that ‘there is a cheque to pay’ and that ‘while this remains unresolved, we cannot move forwards’.
The future of the relationship between the UK and the EU will be a “large commercial agreement”, Zacarias stressed, suggesting it could be “an agreement like the one we made with Canada, but with other facets, or it could be different, because it is an ex-member of the EU”.
“Ana Paula Zacarias said that she hoped this debate can begin in December, if the first questions are resolved”, adds the news channel, concluding that “beyond the UK’s obligations” agreement still has to be reached over the rights of EU citizens in the UK post-Brexit” and a number of other matters.
These other matters include “the question of Ireland, of families reuniting, how social benefits can be transferred and qualifications assimilated”.
Boris Johnson’s meeting is scheduled to take place in the morning.
