ROME, Sept. 21 (Xinhua) -- The European Union's priority is to make sure EU citizens living in Britain have the same protections as they did before Britain chose to leave the Union, EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said in Rome on Thursday.
Barnier is here to update Italian lawmakers on ongoing talks for the conditions of the Brexit from the Union, which he said must produce an agreement on how Britain is to "settle its accounts".
The European diplomat told the House Foreign Affairs and European Affairs committees that both parties "must swiftly reach an agreement on the UK's orderly withdrawal and provide certainty where Brexit has created uncertainty: for citizens, for beneficiaries of EU programs, for the new borders, particularly in Ireland."
"It is absolutely necessary that all these citizens, hundreds of thousands of whom are Italian citizens living and working in the United Kingdom, can continue to live as they did before, with the same rights and safeguards," Barnier said in his speech.
"Our citizens have real concerns today -- which we share -- when the Home Office sends deportation letters or appears to defy High Court orders, as we read in the press," he said.
"A rapid agreement on the conditions of the UK's orderly withdrawal, and a transition period, is possible," he said and urged Britain "to put on the table, as soon as next week, proposals to overcome the barriers."
He said the other two chief issues are a financial settlement, and respect for the EU single market. Britain, he stressed, cannot expect in future to have a trade deal with all the benefits and none of the obligations of being in the EU.
"The future trade deal with the United Kingdom will be particular, as it will be less about building convergence, and more about controlling future divergence," said Barnier, who also met with Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni on Thursday afternoon.
Barnier's visit came ahead of a speech on Brexit by British Prime Minister Theresa May to be held in Florence on Friday, in which she may "offer to pay the EU 20 billion pounds (27.15 billion dollars) for single market access while opting out of European Court of Justice oversight and any single market rules - like freedom of movement - she doesn't want," according to British newspaper The Guardian.
The Treaty on European Union foresees a period of two years to negotiate a country's withdrawal. Britain will officially no longer be a part of the EU as of midnight on March 29, 2019. Its people voted to leave the EU in a referendum in June last year.
