Lesson learned: avoid ccTLDs. Reduce future risk by opting in for .com/.net/.org instead.
Imagine the thousands of people using X@Y.eu as a personal email address. Those domains will be made available for purchase soon thereafter:
> "Twelve months after the UK withdrawal, i.e. on 30 March 2020 00:00:00 CET, all the affected domain names will be REVOKED, and will become AVAILABLE for general registration. For security and stability reasons, the release of all affected domain names will occur in batches from the time they become available."
I work in this industry and this is good advice. gTLDs (especially the new gTLDs) provide way more protection to consumers. ccTLDs are essentially the wild west and the operators have little to no restrictions on what they can do, including taking away people's domain names.
Original gTLDs are subject to US law. There could hypothetically be legislation that directs the Department of Commerce (who technically owns the original gTLDs) to not allow registrations to non-US entities, which Verisign would be obligated to enforce.
New gTLDs are either corporate owned (.google) or were targeted at dotless domains (.diamonds). The ICANN SSAC killed the business model for the latter after companies had laid out millions, so they will likely face solvency issues in the coming years.
ccTLDs are dependent on the political future of the government they are tied to (.ly and Libya is a good example), but at least you have a good idea up front of what you are hitching your cart to.
This is not a wild west issue, though. This is simply an obvious result from the rules for this ccTLD.
And it is still possible to keep those .eu domains: simply make sure you're an EU citizen or transfer the name to an EU entity. I wonder if Estonia's e-residency might help here.
Imagine the thousands of people using X@Y.eu as a personal email address. Those domains will be made available for purchase soon thereafter:
> "Twelve months after the UK withdrawal, i.e. on 30 March 2020 00:00:00 CET, all the affected domain names will be REVOKED, and will become AVAILABLE for general registration. For security and stability reasons, the release of all affected domain names will occur in batches from the time they become available."