Regional cities meet Europe’s Brexit negotiators to press case

Leaders representing the UK’s largest regional cities met with EU negotiators to discuss how the interests of the cities and their businesses can be best met in the lead up to and after Brexit.

The eight-strong UK delegation met with EU chief negotiator Michael Barnier and the European Parliament’s negotiator Guy Verhofstadt yesterday.

Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle and Nottingham were in Brussels as part of the Core Cities UK group. In addition to Manchester and Sheffield, the group represents 20m people and generates 25% of the UK economy.

Cllr Judith Blake, chair of Core Cities UK and leader of Leeds City Council, said: “It’s really important to emphasise that we’re not here to undermine the Government’s negotiations.

“Brexit is happening next year, the cities have got a really clear agenda in terms of how we can move things forward on behalf of our citizens and we are here to start the ball rolling.”

The meeting was in partnership with the European cities network, EUROCITIES, a group of 200 urban centres across the continent.

The UK cities want their European counterparts to highlight to their Governments the importance of a positive relationship between cities.

Cllr Jon Collins, leader of Nottingham City Council, said it was a “great meeting focused on how we build links between European cities and campaign for UK citizens to have the option to retain their EU citizenship following Brexit”.

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