THERESA May’s Brexit offer to the three million EU citizens living in the UK is “below expectations,” the President of the European Council has said.

Donald Tusk said the Prime Minister’s proposal to give Europeans who have lived in the UK for five years a “settled” immigration status would leave EU citizens worse off. “It’s obvious that this is about reducing the citizens’ rights,” Tusk told reporters of his “first impression” of May’s offer. “Our role in negotiations is to reduce this risk.”

May insisted her proposal was a “fair and serious offer”.

“Citizens from EU countries who have come to the United Kingdom and who have made their lives and homes in the United Kingdom will be able to stay, and we will guarantee their rights in the United Kingdom,” she said. “There are some differences between that and the proposals of the European Commission, but the matter will now go into the negotiations.”

Sitting alongside new French President Emmanuel Macron at a joint news conference, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said there was still a “long way to go”.

Merkel added that the European leaders were keen not to let Brexit dominate the EU summit taking place in Brussels. “That was a good beginning but – and I’m trying to word this very carefully – it was not a breakthrough,” she said.

“We have said we want to pursue this matter in good co-operation, but what has come out yesterday was also that we still have a long way to go yet. And the 27 [other EU countries], especially Germany and France, will be well prepared, we will not allow ourselves to be divided.”

Merkel said she would not allow the issue to derail progress in other vital areas. “We need to take care of our own future as an EU27,” Merkel said. “This work should take precedence over Brexit negotiations.”

Nicola Sturgeon tweeted her reaction, saying May’s proposal raised many questions. “There are a multitude of answers needed on a so far very vague proposal that has disgracefully taken a year to emerge,” the First Minister said. Her concerns were echoed by EU leaders desperate for more details, including what it might mean for “complex, multi-national families,” as well as what it mean for judicial oversight.

Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Konrad Szymanski said: “We appreciate the effort but the offer does not meet all the criteria the EU agreed on as red lines.”

In particular, the EU wants its citizens to be able to enforce their rights in Britain through the European Court of Justice, something the Tory leader is against.

They also dispute May’s attempt to limit those rights potentially to people already living in Britain before she triggered Brexit three months ago.

It was claimed yesterday that May had been the only Cabinet minister to block a unilateral offer to EU citizens in the aftermath of the referendum.

An editorial in the London Evening Standard, edited by former chan- cellor George Osborne, said: “Last June, in the days immediately after the referendum, David Cameron wanted to reassure EU citizens they would be allowed to stay. All his Cabinet agreed, except his home secretary, Mrs May, who insisted on blocking it.”

May said that was not her recollection of events. The Prime Minister has outlined five principles for her “offer”. These included a guarantee that no EU citizen resident in Britain at a cut-off date would be deported and that those who had lived in Britain for five years could stay for life -- a right foreigners already have in the rest of the EU.

Those more recently arrived would be allowed to stay until they reach the five-year threshold for “settled status”. Red tape for permanent residency would be cut and there would be a two-year grace period to avoid “cliff edge” mishaps.

Manfred Weber, German leader of conservatives in the European Parliament, which must approve any Brexit deal, said the lack of detail in May’s proposals was “quite worrying for the rest of the negotiations”. Describing “an island in chaos”, Weber said: “It still seems that the UK Government has no idea what it wants to achieve.”

The SNP’s Joan McAlpine, convener of Holyrood’s European committee, said: “Theresa May’s ‘offer’ does not go far enough, and for some of those affected it raises more questions than answers.

“People who have made their lives here and were settled here for several years before the Brexit vote – but who have missed an arbitrary cut-off point – will have woken up to find they have absolutely no security over their place in the country.”