The United Kingdom (the "UK") and the European Union (“EU”) continue to negotiate an agreement outlining the terms of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU. Michel Barnier, the EU’s negotiator for Brexit, recently stated that 75 percent of that withdrawal agreement has been agreed upon by the United Kingdom and the EU. However, the EU has also stated that three major sticking points remain to be resolved in the negotiations, including:

• An agreement on the governance of the Withdrawal Agreement, with the EU taking the position that the European Court of Justice regulates any dispute that cannot be resolved by a UK/EU joint committee;

• An agreement on a specific solution to the unique situation of Ireland and Northern Ireland, which would address whether or not Northern Ireland would effectively remain within the customs union and not have a “hard border” with Ireland;

• The framework of the future relationship between the UK and the EU after the withdrawal period, including whether the framework is defined through treaties or other legal regimes (the transition period ends on December 31, 2019).

The latest round of negotiations took place on May 22 through May 24, 2018. During these negotiations, the parties came to no major agreements on the three sticking points. Moreover, complications in the negotiations have arisen over the level of the UK’s involvement in EU bodies after Brexit.

The UK has taken the position that it should continue to maintain its seat on the European Data Protection Board, the EU-wide entity that is responsible for implementing the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, which came into force on May 25, 2018. The EU has rejected this position, stating that decision-making powers in an EU-wide mechanism cannot be shared with a "third country" (i.e., a country that is not a member state of the EU), even if that third country is a former EU member state. Although there is now no agreement on this point, negotiations on this point, and the points noted above, continue.

Both sides are pushing to finish negotiations by October 2018, so that the UK Parliament and the EU Member States have sufficient time to ratify it prior to Brexit Day on March 29, 2019.