On 22 January 2020, the Parliament of the United Kingdom (UK) ratified the Agreement on the Withdrawal of the UK from the European Union (EU).
The European Parliament will then vote on the Agreement on 29 January. If the vote is positive, the remaining ratification procedures will be concluded by 31 January, and on 31 January, at midnight CET (on 1 February at 01.00 am Latvian time), the United Kingdom will withdraw from the EU in an orderly manner.
In accordance with the Agreement, the UK, while retaining its EU-related rights and obligations, leaves the EU on 1 February 2020 and enters into a transition period running up till 31 December 2020. Cooperation between the EU and the UK will continue throughout the transition period just as it did earlier with the only exception being that the UK will no longer be taking part in EU decision-making.
Discussions on aspects of relations between the EU and the UK after 1 January 2021 will now continue in line with the 17 October 2019 Political Declaration setting out the framework for the future relationship between the European Union and the United Kingdom. The negotiations must be concluded by the end of the transition period.
The UK is a close and reliable Latvian ally; therefore, it is in Latvia’s interests to have relations between the EU and the UK that reflect the closeness of the bilateral relationship, with an emphasis put on protecting people’s rights, as well as in foreign policy, security and trade.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs would like to take this opportunity to repeat the information that the rights of Latvian citizens who would have been granted settled or pre-settled status and the rights of their family members in the UK will remain the same in the future. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs urges all citizens of Latvia who live in or will move to the UK before the end of the transition period on 31 December 2020, to apply for settled or pre-settled status. It will be possible to make that application up till the deadline of 30 June 2021.