Business Insider - EU citizens have the 'sword of Damocles' hanging over them ahead of Brexit

• BI INTERVIEW: The UK has left a "sword of Damocles" hanging over EU citizens living in the UK, a key ally of French President Emmanuel Macron, Alexandre Holroyd MP, has told Business Insider.
• "We have 3.8 million people here who live in the UK with the sword of Damocles above their head and nobody can give them a clear answer about what conditions they're going to live in six months' time," he said.
• Brexit negotiations should rapidly make the status of EU citizens clear, said Holroyd.

LONDON — The UK and EU's failure to clarify the status of European citizens living in the UK, has left "the sword of Damocles above their head," the secretary of the French parliament's Brexit mission has told Business Insider.

Brexit negotiators on both sides are yet to wrap up an agreement on citizens' rights more than two years after the EU referendum. The proposed deal, even if signed, would still fall short of the rights EU citizens living in the UK currently possess under European law.

Alexandre Holroyd, the London-based MP from Emmanuel Macron's En Marche! party who represents French people living in the UK, said that both sides should have provided immediate guarantees over their rights after the 2016 referendum.

"We have 3.8 million people here who live in the UK with the sword of Damocles above their head and nobody can give them a clear answer about what conditions they're going to live in six months' time," he told Business Insider.

Holroyd said signing the Withdrawal Agreement should be the "priority" for that reason.

"Both sides of negotiations because citizens should have seen their rights guaranteed immediately after the 2016 referendum," he said.

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