The fate of 4 million British and European citizens marks the beginning of the Brexit battle.

The tense Brexit negotiations will begin with the fate of 1 million Britons working in Europe and 3 million European citizens in the UK.

A day after British Prime Minister Theresa May officially signed the decision to trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty to take the United Kingdom out of the European Union, four leading European newspapers – The Guardian (UK), Le Monde (France), La Vanguardia (Spain), and Gazeta Wyborcza (Poland) – jointly signed an editorial urging London and Brussels to prioritize resolving the fate of over 4 million citizens, or up to 5 million if families are included.

Protesters in London demonstrate against Brexit. Photo: PA.

This is a thorny issue that European and British officials have been publicly debating for months following the Brexit referendum results in the UK last June.

In late November 2016, 80 British MPs signed a letter accusing Michel Barnier, the EU's chief Brexit negotiator, of refusing to discuss the citizenship rights of nearly 1 million Britons living and working in EU member states, leaving these citizens in a state of anxiety.

The then-President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, refuted this accusation and asserted that there would be no negotiations on the subject until the UK had identified the basic steps to initiate Brexit.

Now that Brexit has officially begun, early discussions on this topic are seen by both the UK and the EU as a tactic to gain an advantage in future trade negotiations.

On March 29, British Prime Minister Theresa May stated that her government would push for legislation outlining the rights and obligations of European citizens living in the UK, provided that Brussels did the same.

Among EU countries with citizens living in the UK, Poland has the largest number with 800,000, followed by France with over 300,000 and Germany with over 150,000. Conversely, the largest number of British citizens live and work in Spain with over 300,000, followed by France, Belgium and Italy.

According to VOV