MADRID: Brexit is beset by government and political infighting. Immigration policy, the services sector, the customs union, the Irish border and even what to do about Trump’s new tariff talk are all on the agenda, and all seem intractable, complex, long-term issues that no one really has a specific, actionable plan for. The clock is now down to just over 12 months to solve. Airlines still don’t know what is supposed to happen but need to know if they can sell tickets and schedule flights to the European Union for 2019.
Yet thus far, there has been no announcement of which pieces of paper will need filling in and to what precise end whether visas or passports or permits and the like or along which specific administrative paths residents and expats and travellers and visitors will be able to transit. At some point over the next few months or years, boxes will need to be checked, details on forms filled in, fees paid to some office somewhere to get the post-Brexit rubber stamp for homes, businesses, and children. But checkboxes and forms require very, very fine detail, and we are apparently still very, very far from that point.
With only 12 months to go, people in the real world now need the boring fine details of Brexit, the “workable solutions” the EU refers to in its document.
