Her chief negotiator Michel Barnier is due to step down from his role in the coming days and the Frenchman’s UK Task Force will be disbanded.
Commission vice-president Maros Sefcovic will lead all future work on the implementation of the Withdrawal Agreement and Trade and Cooperation Agreement.
The Slovak diplomat will be supported by a newly-formed UK service of experts brought in to work exclusively on post-Brexit talks with Britain.
Marie Simonsen and Stefan Fuehring will also join the new unit having previously worked on Mr Barnier’s UK Task Force.
A former aide to Jean-Claude Juncker will lead the EU s new UK service (Image: GETTY)
Brexit timeline (Image: Express) Rather, citizens registered in the Registry of Italians Residing Abroad (Aire) in England and Wales have more than doubled in the space of seven years.
Following the UK s departure from the bloc, eurosceptism across Italy has grown with many urging Italy to follow Britain and leave the EU.
Earlier this month, Italexit founder Gianluigi Paragone said his party would not support the new Prime Minister Mario Draghi in the upper house of parliament, and added this is the time for Italy to leave the EU.
This comes as Spanish eurosceptics have officially launched a campaign for Spain to have a referendum on its membership of the EU.
| UPDATED: 09:36, Thu, Feb 25, 2021
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The Brussels diplomat told member state ambassadors they must crack down on Britain to ensure other countries do not follow it out of the exit door. The Frenchman was attending his final meeting of the bloc’s “Coreper” meeting of EU27 envoys before he steps down as head of the European Commission’s UK task force. Mr Barnier urged them to be “vigilant” that Britain fully respects both the Brexit divorce and trade deals, especially the Northern Ireland Protocol to avoid a hard border.
Emmanuel Macron was criticised by some EU leaders (Image: GETTY)
Prior to the vote, the anti-EU rhetoric was building across the bloc, particularly in countries such as France and Sweden.
In Stockholm, one survey found that 36 percent of Swedes wanted Swexit - the country s answer to Brexit - while in May 2016, an Ipsos Mori poll suggested that more than half of Italian and French citizens wanted to vote on their country s membership within the EU.
In the aftermath of the vote, Jeppe Kofod, a Danish MEP and leader of the Social Democrats in the European Parliament, warned of a domino effect that could be experienced with other nations wanting to leave.