EC President Juncker and chief negotiator Michel Barnier addressed the EP debate on the negotiations with the UK

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and European Commission chief negotiator for the Article 50 negotiations with the UK Michel Barnier addressed the plenary of the European Parliament on 5 April. Their remarks came ahead of the vote on a resolution on the EU negotiations with the UK. President Juncker underlined the importance of the Parliament's role and said that failure to reach an agreement is the worst case scenario in which everybody will lose. His words were echoed by Michel Barnier.

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Michel Barnier's speech

Lincolnshire schoolgirl receives EU translation award

A Lincolnshire teenager received an EU translation award – the Juvenes Translatores  prize – at a ceremony in Brussels yesterday (6 April, see picture of the week). Amy Baxter of King Edward VI Grammar School in Louth won the British leg of the competition to find the best young translators across the EU. She translated a text about European history and the importance of languages and translation from Spanish into English. Amy’s translation was judged the best of 284 done by students in 73 schools across the UK, covering a range of different European languages. She is hoping to study Spanish and Italian at Cambridge University.

More than 3,000 students from over 700 schools across Europe entered the competition, translating in 152 different combinations between the EU’s 24 official languages.

After Article 50: what next?

On 3 April, the UK in a Changing Europe, research organisation bringing together some of the UK's leading EU experts, organised an event on the next steps following the triggering of Article 50 last week. “People expect rewards from Brexit but what they will get is income compression”, said Vince Cable, Former Secretary of State for Business Innovation and Skills. Among the other speakers was Hilary Benn, MP and Chair of the House of Commons Select Committee on Exiting the EU, who spoke about transitional arrangements saying they would probably need to be similar to existing ones. Jonathan Faull, former head of the UK taskforce pre-referendum at the European Commission and Pierre Vimont, senior fellow at Carnegie Europe emphasised that while the EU wanted a deal, it would take care of its interests and there would be negative consequences for the UK from its decision. Mr Faull added that the UK now realised there were many hard issues and “these can be no surprise”. He went on to say that outside the EU, the UK would need a new modus operandi in Brussels, perhaps based on the Swiss model, to reduce damage over time. Brigid Laffan, Director of the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies said she could not imagine an Irish government walking away from negotiations or agreeing to others walking away.

Douglas Carswell, former UKIP MP and now independent, argued that the referendum result expressed people's wishes to have a much stronger voice in politics at all level.

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