For his first official appearance before the press, on Tuesday 6 December, Michel Barnier, the Commission's negotiator on the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the EU, delivered a very tight negotiation calendar, stating that the divorce agreement between London and the EU would have to be ready by no later than October 2018 in order to allow it to be ratified by the European Parliament and the British Parliament before the European elections of 2019. This is the date that has been set by the European negotiators to draw a line under the United Kingdom's membership of the EU and start a new page of European construction, as Barnier explained.
The French negotiator used the language of Shakespeare to say that "the EU is ready to receive the notification" (of article 50 of the treaty), but added that there will not be much time between the notification, which has been pencilled in for the end of March, the weeks it will then take for the 27 to adopt the negotiation mandate and the final ratification process. In this context, "the sooner the better", Barnier once again warned.
Beyond the urgency of this timetable, the Commission's negotiator declined to be drawn on the details of these forthcoming negotiations, as he feels that it is too early to say. One thing is certain: the EU and London are taking a path that is "legally complex, politically sensitive and will have major consequences for our economies and for the people on both sides". The Frenchman also drew another line in the sand: maintaining the interests and preserving the unity of the 27. The four fundamental freedoms of the single market (people, services, goods and capital) are also an indivisible package, the UK being warned once again that there will be no cherry-picking.
With this conference, Barnier, who has come in for criticism from the British for his inflexibility and his refusal to start negotiations before the notification, aimed mainly to present the work that has been carried out so far, for instance his visits to 18 capitals, with his tour of the 27 expected to be concluded by the end of January 2017.
But the ball is unquestionably now in the British court, Barnier insisted. This is true as regards the triggering of article 50 of the treaty, but also in defining the future relationship between EU and the third country that the UK will become.
Negotiations on the divorce between London and the EU, which will theoretically run for two years, according to the treaty, will bear in mind the future form of this partnership. "This agreement on leaving the EU must take account of the future relationship we will have together", Barnier stress.
However, in order to consider a transitional period, should the outlines of this new cooperation not be completely in place once the withdrawal treaty has been ratified by the competent Parliaments, the UK will also have to state its intentions by then and the model it wishes to adopt in the future.
Barnier explicitly declined to state whether the EU was at this stage already open to a transitional period, that would allow the UK to avoid being cut off from the EU overnight. He stressed that this transitional phase makes no sense unless it is in preparation for the new relationship. "But we will need to know what it will consist of in order to prepare for it". "Until we know what the UK is prepared to ask for and to agree to, it's hard to talk about a transitional period".
As for the models London may opt for, the former European Commissioner for the Single Market and Financial Services invited the British to look at the various statuses of the third countries associated with the EU, within the European Economic Area or the European Free Trade Alliance. In the case of Norway, this status is accompanied by a "specified form of contribution to the European budget" in return for access to the single market.
The Frenchman also swept away any doubts over his intention to carry out a "hard" or a "soft" Brexit. "I don't know what a 'hard' Brexit or a 'soft' Brexit is. But I can tell you that it will be a clear and ordered Brexit that takes account of the interests of the 27". (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)