25 June, 2017
German Chancellor Angela Merkel called May's offer a "good start" but made clear that her focus was on the EU's future without a Britain many view as politically crippled by rows over Brexit that have been inflamed by May losing her majority in a June 8 election.
(Stephanie Lecocq, Pool Photo via AP). And we will leave the EU.
Macron says he and the central European leaders "defined their points of disagreement" and talked frankly, but showed no sign of softening his criticism. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said there were "thousands of questions to ask".
May, however, described her proposals on citizens' right as "fair and serious", reiterating her previous conditions that the European Union should guarantee equal respect in the post-Brexit scenario for about 1.5 million British citizens living in European Union countries.
"We don't want to buy a pig in a poke", Michel said, using an old expression for wanting to inspect something closely before buying it.
One year on from the vote to leave the European Union, we asked our readers a series of questions to gain an insight as to whether their views had changed in relation to the historic decision.
Citizens' rights is a major issue in the negotiations, which are expected to last until early 2019.
May had previously refused to guarantee the rights of Europeans until the futures of one million British expatriates living in the rest of the EU were also secured, and she said in Brussels that her proposal depended on a reciprocal deal.
"I think that's a very serious offer", she added.
Germany's Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel was more outspoken, describing May's opening offer as "the minimum", adding that her pledge was "actually something that should be taken for granted".
EU leaders however coldly received May's offer which she described as "fair" to protect rights of resident European citizens in the United Kingdom after BREXIT.
Mr Tusk said that the offer would be subjected to line-by-line analysis by the Brexit negotiation team led by Michel Barnier following its publication on Monday.
May repeatedly said during the election campaign that "no deal is better than a bad deal", though she has been less forthright since the election result.
Co-chairman Nicolas Hatton said: "There is something slightly pathetic about the Prime Minister's proposal which makes no reference to the detailed, comprehensive offer tabled by the EU". This is the first gambit in a gruelling negotiation, and the EU-27 leaders expect lots of give-and-take. She laid out benchmarks for their rights and said they should be shielded from excessive harm because of the political divorce.
"The situation must be really tense if such an obvious thing is now considered as news. Of course people should at least have the right to stay, that is a minimum and personally I can not imagine things differently", he said speaking in Paris on Friday.
Nonetheless, the offer falls far short of the very clear proposals put forward by the EU Commission that EU nationals already in the United Kingdom and those arriving before we leave the EU should retain their current rights indefinitely. May also promised to cut the burdensome bureaucracy such paperwork can involve.
Geir Moulson contributed from Berlin.
