Almost seven months since the people of the United Kingdom voted for their country to leave the European Union, on Tuesday 17 January, UK Prime Minister Theresa May delivered a keenly awaited speech on her government’s strategy for delivering Brexit.
May stated that leaving the EU meant leaving the single European market. She gave assurances, however, that her government would seek to ensure the best possible access to that same single market without actually belonging to it.
With the UK due to trigger Article 50 of the Treaty of the EU before the end of March, May announced that her country would seek to negotiate a customs agreement with the EU, which could mean reaching a completely new agreement or signing up to some parts of the existing customs union. Since, the prime minister argued, the country could not be “half in, half out” of the EU, it could be “some sort of associate customs union status”.
“I do not want Britain to be part of the common commercial policy and I do not want us to be bound by the common external tariff. These are the elements of the customs union that prevent us from striking our own comprehensive trade agreements with other countries. But I do want us to have a customs agreement with the EU”, she said.
“Whether that means we must reach a completely new customs agreement, become an associate member of the customs union in some way, or remain a signatory to some elements of it, I hold no preconceived position”, she stated. The UK will not, however, look to negotiate “partial membership of the European Union, associate membership of the European Union, or anything that leaves us half-in, half-out” nor will it seek to adopt a model already enjoyed by other countries.
Global Britain. The UK prime minister hopes to make the United Kingdom a champion of global trade and will “pursue a bold and ambitious free-trade agreement with the European Union” that will allow her to “remove as many barriers to trade as possible”. “I want Britain to be free to establish our own tariff schedules at the World Trade Organisation, meaning we can reach new trade agreements not just with the European Union but with old friends and new allies from outside Europe too”, she went on to say.
In the course of her speech, which lasted close to an hour, May sought to give assurances that her aim was to achieve a smooth, “phased” exit and to avoid a brutal Brexit. The interests of both sides must be maintained and May promised to engage in positive and constructive negotiations with her European partners, with whom the UK wishes to be the “best friend and partner” after it leaves the EU.
May warned her counterparts, however, against any temptation to punish her country as a means of discouraging other member states from leaving the bloc. Any punitive response on the part of the 27 member states could lead the UK to adopt a more aggressive trade policy, and perhaps a very attractive fiscal policy that would tempt the biggest companies to the UK.
Cautious European reaction. May’s chosen path of taking her country out of the single market was welcomed by Berlin, pleased that some clarity had been brought. “We are happy that the UK prime minister has outlined her government’s vision for leaving the EU and at last delivered a degree of clarity on British plans”, said German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, calling for “as good and as close relations as possible” once Brexit has been formalised.
But “negotiations will only begin when Great Britain has officially declared its wish to leave” the EU, he stressed, making clear that the remaining 27 member states had to “strengthen the cohesion of the European Union and preserve the integrity of the single market”.
European Council President Donald Tusk, too, felt that May’s announcement was “at least more realistic”, even though Brexit remains a “sad process”, he tweeted.
“The UK prime minister had a whole range of options on how to shape her country’s exit from the EU. It has to be acknowledged that she has opted for the hard Tory interpretation of the referendum result. She has also repeated the threats delivered by her finance minister of tax and social dumping to increase the UK’s attractiveness”, said the joint leader of the Greens/EFA in the European Parliament, Philippe Lamberts (Belgium).
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker was due to have talks with May on Tuesday afternoon. Michel Barnier, the Commission negotiator on Brexit, however, took to Twitter and said that an orderly withdrawal of the UK from the EU was a prerequisite for the future partnership between the two parties.
The European Parliament’s Brexit negotiator Guy Verhofstadt (Belgium) said that it was important that May is clear about the UK’s position because “she is saying clearly that ‘we are leaving the single market’, that ‘we are leaving the customs union’”. That said, he added, that this, too, “creates an illusion, an illusion that you can leave the single market, leave the customs union and then that you can pick and choose, that you can still enjoy some of the advantages. I don’t think that will happen. We will never accept a situation where it is better to be outside the EU and outside the single market than to be a member of the EU”, he stated. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic with Élodie Lamer and Lionel Changeur)