I thought you might like to see the latest Irish view of Brexit and the RTE (BBC equivalent) comment is on the link below. It is detailed and lengthy as is the way with the Irish! These Irish views, however, accord with other articles from the EU side, so it is fairly unbiased in an EU-wide context.

The UK side and the UK press in particular, of course, have very different views – mainly that the EU is stopping the UK getting what it wants. That, to some extent is true – the EU has its laws and rules and it is unwilling to change them just for the UK – especially as the UK is leaving the EU of its own free will.

As the article explains, the EU is pushing Brexit to one side to deal with other more pressing issues and the EU has largely reluctantly concluded a hard Brexit is the most likely scenario unless the UK has a change of direction. With the state of the Conservative party and of Westminster generally, a change of direction looks unlikely any time soon. With Theresa May having made promises to the EU in December and March and not kept them, the UK-EU relations are starting to go sour.

The June EU summit looks like not achieving much in Brexit terms as there is no progress to report on. The next EU summit in October is, in essence, the final cut-off for the UK to save itself from economic disaster. If there is still no progress by October, then it is highly likely that the EU will start preparations for hard borders and the imposition of World Trade Organisation tarriffs. What that would mean for ex-pats is still unclear as there is no published default plan for citizens rights if the UK Withdrawal Agreement (with the agreed citizens rights) does not go ahead.

Here is the link:

https://www.rte.ie/news/brexit/2018/0615/970823-tony-connelly-brexit/