Trade effects of Brexit likely to become clearer only after 1 October, senior EU official tells EU and UK local and regional politicians at meeting that puts spotlight on Northern Ireland and Gibraltar. Movement across the United Kingdom's borders with Ireland and Spain were central issues discussed at a meeting of British and EU local and regional politicians that focused on connections at risk of being lost by the UK's withdrawal from the EU.

Local and regional politicians from the European Union voiced short-term relief mixed with long-term caution and concern at their first meeting with UK counterparts since the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement was settled on 24 December. Politicians from both the EU and the United Kingdom emphasised a wish to develop new ties in the wake of an agreement that ended most region-to-region programmes and envisages no role for regions in overseeing and developing the deal.

​Local and regional politicians from the United Kingdom have, for the first time, met members of the European Committee of the Regions in a Contact Group intended to ensure that lines of communication developed over the course of the UK's nearly 47 years of membership of the European Union remain open at regional and local level beyond 2020. After its creation in 1994, the European Committee of the Region became the principal point of contact between regions and cities from the UK and other EU member states.

​The European Committee of the Regions (CoR) has launched a UK Contact Group intended to maintain lines of communication between local and regional authorities in the European Union and the UK's cities, regions and devolved administrations. The initiative follows the UK's departure from the EU on 31 January 2020.​