British prime minister Theresa May’s surprise general election announcement has thrown many off balance, but it is a sideshow in the ongoing Brexit circus.
EU officials were at pains this week to stress that the vote, set for 8 June, will not derail the timeline for Brexit talks by more than a couple of weeks, while taking an increasingly tough line in their draft negotiating texts for those talks.
European Council president Donald Tusk summed up the feeling on Twitter this week. “It was Hitchcock who directed Brexit,” he wrote, following the UK election announcement. “First an earthquake and the tension rises.” (see EUROPE 11769).
Philippe Lamberts, co-chair of the Green group in the European Parliament, says the toughest issues in the upcoming talks will be on citizens’ rights and Ireland’s border.
Citizens
Draft negotiating guidelines - due to be signed off by EU leaders on 29 April - now contain a reference to “smooth and simple administrative procedures” for citizens seeking residency post-Brexit.
A Commission non-paper to be presented at a meeting of EU Brexit ‘sherpas’ on 24 April also calls for residency rights to be issued under a “simple and swift procedure”.
The development follows complaints by several EU countries that their citizens faced increasing bureaucratic obstacles in the UK since the country voted to leave the EU last June.
Non-UK citizens are entitled to permanent residency after five consecutive years in the UK, but applicants must fill in a complex 85-page form to do so, and press reports abound of EU nationals being told to “prepare to leave” after failing the residency test.
Sources in the room at a previous meeting of Brexit sherpas on 11 April stressed that there was a consensus on the negotiating guidelines as a whole, with cosmetic changes also expected to language on the UK’s EU budget liabilities. But one source also said countries had looked for more clarity on the sequencing of divorce talks and future trade talks.
Sequencing
The draft guidelines insist on “sufficient progress” in the divorce deal before any talks on trade can begin.
But Ireland, the Netherlands, and Denmark, which have strong export links to the UK, are pushing to wind up divorce talks as quickly as possible to allow them to focus on trade.
Leaders from the three countries met in The Hague Friday to press their case. "I hope that we can see substantial progress in the initial phase of the negotiations, so that we can proceed to start talks about the framework for the future relationship between the UK and the EU,” said Irish prime minister Enda Kenny. “Given the extent of our trade and economic links with the UK, it will be important to move the talks on to these vital issues once sufficient progress has been achieved.”
Almost a fifth of Ireland’s total exports go to the UK, which is the country’s largest export destination within the EU. The Netherlands and Denmark also count the UK among their top three EU export partners, according to Eurostat.
There is growing concern among Europe’s more open economies that countries such as France are seeking to punish the UK to deter other member states from leaving the EU.
Irish EPP MEP Brian Hayes said there are countries that “want to play hardball with the UK”, and said it was necessary to form a group to counter that tendency. “Brexit represents a high stakes diplomatic battle and a lot will depend on how strong our alliances are with the likes of the Baltics, the Nordics and the Benelux countries. They have been echoing similar messages in calling for a soft Brexit,” Mr Hayes said.
Unity
EU leaders have insisted that there is a unified position going into Brexit talks, a sentiment that the Irish, Danish and Dutch leaders echoed after their meeting on Friday.
But trade and competition among member states to steal the EU’s banking and medicines agencies from London post-Brexit might further complicate talks once they get underway (see EUROPE 11770).
“There are different interests because member states are affected in different ways from one another,” Mr Lamberts said. “People see the interest in sticking together on this,” he added. “The Brits may try to divide the EU27 but we’ll see how far they can be successful.”
The Brexit guidelines will be adopted by EU leaders at a summit on 29 April and the negotiating directives at a Europe ministers’ meeting on 22 May. The EU and UK can then start talks, though they are not expected to kick off until a new UK government is formed. (Sarah Collins)